I spent a lot of time playing all sorts of electrics as I sought out the guitar for me. Despite playing guitar for 16 years now as well as being the lead singer in a high school band, learning bass and drum kit, I've never personally owned an electric guitar! I started learning guitar on my dad's 70s Tele, have an Epiphone acoustic, and have a preference for a more comfortable neck, but I wanted to be able to truly shred with the best of them. I wound up on the search for a guitar with versatile pickups and tones that is extremely good to play on and equipped with a floating bridge and 24 frets so that I could tackle anything I set my mind to... This is the "I can do it all!" guitar. Stainless steel frets should mean I can play it forever. The tuning is very stable with the locking tuners and Graphtech TUSQ nut, whose teflon will ensure I never have to lubricate the nut. And the pickups split nicely between outer and inner coils for a spanky Tele-like sound, which is also nice because the outer pickup pole piece heights can be adjusted to give the two coil splits distinct sounds. My favorite part of this guitar is the neck, though, since this is a very essential component in playability. The smooth, natural wood feel on the roasted maple is so nice to play on. The shape is very comfortable, even moreso than a Fender neck one be, closely beating out EVH necks in my opinion. Any other "super strat" will usually have a very thin Ibanez-esque neck which I find to not be very ergonomic. The compound radius on this guitar makes playing low and high on the neck equally effortless. I also find it to be a very beautiful guitar. The deep red/purple color, with the exposed maple binding, matching headstock, and complementary wood color of the roasted maple fretboard make for a very nice look. Plus, I'm a sucker for offsets, not only for looks, but also comfortably sitting while playing. My only gripes are that I didn't get a case included, and that the there were some quality issues. The first guitar I ordered had odd paint issues in the screw holes of the neck joint, but the biggest problem was that the nut was aligned or cut improperly so that the high-E string would easily slide off the fretboard making it difficult to quickly finger a chord and impossible to do subtle vibrato. I got a replacement and the frets need a bit of a polish and the bridge pickup cushions don't allow it to sit perfectly level.

Recently acquired this in burgundy, barely used (like still had factory plastic scratch guards and strings) Amazing! When I first saw this other people around me said, "Wow! What a beautiful guitar!" Like literally said wow. Sure it's pretty, I think to myself, but I gig about 50 times a year, what does this thing play and sound like? I skeptically tested it out. Neck is long and satiny. Nut is perfectly spaced and smooth. Pickups have wide array of great sounds. Bridge is smooth, locking tuners stay in tune—I looked for flaws and found maybe one—brand recognition. Otherwise this thing is a champ, it's a hot rod, a laser scalpel. It has actual wow factor. Cort got everything right without taking anything away, or having anything superfluous. PS I can't say enough about the burgundy finish in person, it draws people into your music.

I took a chance on this one, 35 years xp. I saw an ad in Prog Magazine about this guitar. Basically, it was advertising that this was Cort's attempt at making a guitar similar to other sort-of boutique guitars, Ibanez AZ. I must say, I LOVE this guitar, it is the best!