Agile 2500 Gold Top

2004 Agile AL2500 Gold Top with P-90's. Left handed. Grover 18:1 tuners. 2 volumes and 2 tones. Decent nut and harware. Nice gold sparkle finish. Not flawless. If I look real close, I can see a couple spots of dust or something in the paint. Not a big deal at all. Guitar looks great. No sense being a cork-sniffer with these. They're only $230!

I play blues and classic rock. Currently playing thrugh a Vox Valvetronix AD30VT. P-90's are great for this! Right out of the box it was a bit bright for me. Opened it up and found 500k pots. Soldered 470k resistors in parallel with the volume pots to take their resistance down to 250k. Much better! Got rid of the fizzy top end. The bridge pickup now has a nice midrange growl to it. Neck position is deeper and bluesier.

The ceramic poickups are great for clean tones, but are a bit harsh and gritty sounding for OD tones. I'll change these pickups out for some AlNiCO's in the next couple months. When I change out the pickups, I'll go to proper 250k volume pots.

Giving it a 7 because of the use of 500k pots with P-90's and also the ceramic magnet pickups, which I'm not a fan of anyways. Once I drop AlNiCO pickups in it and 250k volume pots, I'm sure this will be a "10."

Intonation was all good except for the high E string, which was slightly out. Very easy to set up. Needed no truss rod adjustment. Lowered the bridge and tad and all was well.

The 20th fret was grounding out the strings when when I played on the 19th fret, so I tapped it back down with a hammer and small wooden block. Apparently it was ill-seated. That was a month ago and it's been fine.

Guitar is very playable. Only giving it an 7 because of the fret issue, although I resolved that easy enough.

Very solid guitar. No concerns in this area.

Kurt is very easy to do business with.

At this price range I always expect to change pickups. The fret issue was easily resolved. I'm sure Kurt would have taken care of it if it wasn't.

This is my second Agile. I also have a Trans-Amber 2500. Still a fan of this company and product.

A 2004 (I assume) product of South Korea, my new Agile 2500 is a very impressive guitar. It has most of the standard Les Paul features (rosewood fretboard, trapezoid inlays, 2 volume and 2 tone knobs with a tune-o-matic bridge on a mahogany body), with a few departures, in this case 2 VERY nice P-90 style single-coil pickups and a maple neck. Many good guitars over the years, including some Gibson LP's have had the mahogany body/maple neck connection, and it works fine on this guitar. Another difference is that the fretboard has a 13.7" radius, which might make it hard to replace the bridge with standard TOM unit. Also, the cutaway horn is more rounded. It is now in between a Les Paul and a Guild Bluesbird. I like it--it makes the Agile look like an Agile (to the trained eye. Most people probably wouldn't know or care about the difference). The guitar is a very lovely goldtop finish, with little sparkly bits in the paint to make it really look sharp.

I had been in market for a two volume/two tone guitar for about a year, so from that standpoint, I would give the features a good score--the axe has what I was looking for. If you like the Les Paul shape and vibe, the Agile delivers.

I play blues and blues based rock, using a Carvin SX-50 amp (a wonderful tone machine, and very "tube-like"; you can check my review on HC) and also do some recording using Apple's GarageBand and my DigiTech RP-50. So I play through real and modeled amps. The Agile sounds very nice when laying down lead tracks, especially with the neck pickup. But my favorite way of playing is to stay on the middle pickup setting, and just adjust the respective volume knobs when I want more oomph. Adding in more of the bridge pickup gives more treble and bite to the sound, and adding in more of the neck pickup makes it smoother and creamier. This guitar has a lot of tone hidden inside, and I really look forward to using it live and on recording tracks. The unamplified sound is a little thin, and it is not very loud unamplified, but it sounds great through speakers or headphones.

This is a mixed bag. On the whole, I am incredibly pleased with how this guitar looks and is put together. For $250 (including shipping), it is a VERY well made piece of kit. At a superficial level, this guitar rivals my much more expensive, American made guitars. On the other hand, when you start looking carefully, there are a few small "flaws", that may put some people off. There is a small mark (it almost looks like a burn) in the binding of the seventh fret. The control plate on back has some small gaps between it and the body (like they routed too much of the body). There are also a few areas where the finish is uneven, or has some dust caught in the paint. Also, the pickguard is a little rough

The preceding issues are minor (at least to me). On the plus side, the guitar is well shielded, the binding on the neck is VERY nice, and the frets are perfect. My number one guitar is a Carvin custom DC-127, which is the best guitar I've ever played, but the frets are much smoother on the Agile. I'm probably going to take off the pickguard anyway, so that is not an issue.

While I could wish that the Agile was "perfect", I really have no complaints, for $250. This is the least money I've ever played for a guitar, and it compares very well with my other guitars which cost 3 and 4 times as much.

This is an extremely heavy guitar--10 pounds. That said, the strap buttons are very big and stable, and the guitar seems tough. I always use multiple guitars when gigging, but I would definitely rely on this to get me through a show.

The parts of the guitar look like they are of good quality, especially the Grover tuners (the same as on my Guild Songbird, which are great units). I don't foresee any need to replace any of the hardware on this axe.

I've been curious about the Agiles for abou a year now, and have spent a lot of time reading the internet forums. It seems that Rondo gives great customer service. I wrote a letter to Kurt once, and got a very prompt reply. I have no doubts that I could return this guitar for a different one if I was really unhappy with it, but I think this is a keeper. Apparently there is a one year warranty, but I hope that I won't need it! The guitar reached my door in 3 days after posting the internet order, and I got tracking info from FedEx to watch it's progress. On the whole, I would have no reluctance buying from Rondo again.

I've been playing seriously for 18 years. My other guitars are a 1987 American Standard Strat, a 2000 Carvin DC-127 and a Guild Songbird. I've owned other guitars, and have played many more owned by friends, bandmates etc. This is the first guitar I've had that wasn't made in America since a Korean Epiphone Sheraton I bought in 1988. That guitar had a lot of problems, but if the Agile is any proof, Korean craftsmanship has greatly improved. And why be surprised? The Koreans make many high quality products. I'd like to buy American, and help support our workers, but I've been GASsing for a Les Paul type axe for over a year now, and couldn't afford more than $250. Compared to the Gibson Les Paul Faded I played recently at my local music store (which costs twice as much as the Agile), my Agile is prettier, more comfortable to play, and sounds better amplified. To me, there is no question that Agile makes fine instruments for beginners, and very nice axes for experienced players to use.

This is a 2004 Goldtop P90 from Rondo Music in New Jersey. It has a 22 fret maple set neck with a solid mahogany body. The controls are a 3 way toggle switch for the pickups and a seperate volume and tone for each. This model is an LP copy and the Goldtop finish is flawless. The die cast Grover tuners are very good and there is no need to replace them. The toggle switch is a little flimsy feeling but I wouldn't say it's garbage.

The sound is more than I expected from a 229 dollar guitar. Much more. Deep bass and beautiful highs, the pickups are as powerful as a humbucker. There is some 60cycle buzzing but it is not too bad at all. This guitar I would have to say is great for blues and rock and some old rock n' roll. I wouldn't use it for "clean" country or pop. It's not that is distotion type sound, but it is a heavier deeper type sound. I've used it through my old Kustom solid states
and a super reverb clone and a bandmaster. The Kustom keeps it cleaner and with a heavy bottom. The Fenders bring out the bluesiness of this combination. The only thing I don't like is when I switch to the neck pickup, the volume increases noticeably. I never noticed that on my others. I would have liked it if it was more discreet when switching.

If you like the feeling of a les paul or sg neck, you will like this neck. Smooth, fast and the frets are very good for machine finishing. The setup was good, I had to intonate the two bottom strings a bit. The nut was fine other than it's plastic. After I have it a while longer I may replace it with a better one. The pickups were adjusted fine. The guitar was put together very well, I have no complaints about the finish or action.

I would play live with this guitar. The hardware seems very reliable and the finish looks properly applied. No worries about scraping the finish off from playing or the tuning keys not doing their job.

haven't needed any

I've been playing for over 30 years. I have 2 les pauls and and sg and several fenders. I have never seen a guitar for this price with this quality. My favorite feature is the fullness of the P90's on this guitar. I wanted a guitar with these type of pickups to kind of round out my collection. But, I didn't want to spend big bucks and not like it. This more than fit the bill. If it were stolen, I wouldn't break down or anything, because for 229, I could get a new one.