This guitar is a tale of two guitars. First, the good. The pickups are actually very good...surprisingly so. The neck and fretboard are decent, although the neck feels a bit "cheap", but still excellent quality. The finish is excellent and it really is a nice guitar...EXCEPT: The hardware is DREADFUL! The "Floyd Rose" , the locking nut and the tuners are just so bad, I threw them in the bin and replaced all of them (fortunately I had exact replacements from on old Ibanez in my junk drawer). This guitar is NOT for the beginner, because they will become so frustrated they will probably just quit guitar. I can't see too many people spending the loot to replace all the hardware on this guitar. It's a shame because if HB had put decent hardware on this guitar, it would be very nice and worth an extra 30-40 dollars.