Ibanez, Kramer, ESP, BC Rich, Jackson and all the other non-Gibson/non-Fender metal-oriented guitars out there

They all make decent guitars when you pay the price... You drop $2000 on any of those guitars and you'll get a decent to good, sometimes even great guitar. However, when you drop that kind of money on any of those guitars, they depreciate in value over time. Your $2000 Ibanez won't be worth $2000 10 years from now, no matter how good u treat it. In fact, it may not even be worth $1000. Your $2000 Gibson, though, if treated right, will be $2000, or $2500, or $3000, who the fuck knows. Gibsons/Fenders are the "standards" in guitars if you will, and much of their value is that they're still considered collectors pieces, when they're the American made, high-end ones. As a result, their price equals in Ibanez, Kramer, etc... aren't so equal at all.

Try tracking down some 70's and early 80's Ibanez guitars...before they started getting pointy headstocks. There are some really amazing neck-thru-body guitars with cool paint jobs, varnishes, killer pearl inlays, etc. Martin guitars even briefly made some cool electrics under the name Sigma before they went to making that their cheap acoustic brand.

The Kramer's with metal necks are pretty fun to play and can give you wicked sustain (perfect for all of you doom metal startup bands out there). I'm really not much of a guitar nerd...I just want something that looks cool or unique and plays well. I (probably like most people) can't just go drop $2000 on a Gibson, so I'll go and seek out something neat I've never seen before for under $500 bucks. Plus, when your roommate steals it, you aren't out 2000 bucks!

What about the crucial things like bridge, neck width, frets, intonation, action and, yeah, pickups? The shape and composition of the body is bullshit (although I won't get into an argument about vibrations in wood with you) and I thought you'd understand I'm talking about sound, machinery and "feel" here. A Gibson flying V is nothing like a Les Paul, either, ya know.

I borrowed a Jackson Randy Rhodes in 89 for a couple of months. Unbelievable sustain, monstrous tone, and the neck was giant. As a diehard metalhead at the time, I don't think I heard a more authentic growl and bass response in any other guitar. It was a chugging, palm-muting machine.

The other guitar in this realm I owned was the Hamer Steve Stevens. Much like the ESP Maverick, with an extra single-coil. It had a very small body. Very well made, neck through body, beautiful pearloid white paint job.

If I were able to pick up the ESP Maverick or the Steve Stevens again, I'd seriously consider it. I don't think I could make much use of the Jackson, and I'd have problems playing a pointy guitar at this point in my life.

All the BC Riches I ever played felt very cheap. Perhaps I only encountered the lower end of their line.

On the whole resale value thing, I don't think the idea that current Gibson/Fenders will sustain value is all that solid. The reason that vintage stuff is worth so much is that people didn't think they'd be worth anything, so they abused/modified/threw away/played the shit out of them. Now, every "limited run" that we get in the shop is purchased by some guy who's going to put it under his bed for 20 years thinking it'll make him rich.

Oh yeah, this would also be an appropriate time to mention that there is a "I Love Guitars" board, not that anyone ever much goes there.

Jackson bridges were often Floyd Rose... if not, they're often the Tune-a-matic like the Gibson, so yes. Neck feel on some of the 80's jacksons reminded me lots of Fender... Often a C neck, though tended to be flatter and slightly wider, which was characteristic of more of the 80's Fender's than the gibsons of the same era. You'd get a more "Gibson" sound out of the Jackson, yes... though really, my Jackson feels nothinglike my Gibsons, though yes its got more of a Les Paul sound than it does a Strat sound.

Flatter and wider necks, to me, always reminds me of Gibsons, which I tend to think of as the ultimately playable guitar because I learned on a Fender bullet and then a telecaster and had several cheapo guitars in between. All have pretty thick necks that are hard to get your hands around. My friend's American Deluxe Stratocaster had a nice thin neck, which surprised me in how much easier it was to play than the Fenders I'd grown up on and grown sick of.

I think because Jacksons were rare in the town I grew up in, they always looked so intriguing and elusive when I'd see Randy Rhoads or Kirk Hammett playing one.

Didn't Eddie Van Halen play a Kramer? Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are loyal to Ibanez... and I just watched a video of them last night. Wow.

It seems most of these are like Strat-bodied Gibsons with nice thin, wide necks and humbuckers. I wish I could figure out why Fender seems to inherently have a nice, warm persnable tone and most of these other ones strike me as clinically precise machines.