Aria Pro II CS-250

This guitar was made in japan from 81 to 83
The body is made of ash, and it looks a bit like a Gibson SG
22 frets, rosewood fingerboard
Brigde is a string-thru body and with chrome hardware
It has two humbuckers(Protomatic IV) with a three-way pickupselector and coil-split on both pickups
It has 4 knobs, 2 tone and 2 vol
I think the nut is bone
The tuners look original

The sound this guitar can make is amazing. The tones can go from bright to muddy with my 10W praticeamp, and i'm telling you that amp is really bad and noisy but still the tone and power of this guitar shines on. I mostly play rock and I can get really cool sound out of it.
You can get a really bright and almost twangy sound on the bridgepickup, and if you switch to the neck the sound gets very deep and fat.
There is alot of variety in the sound due to the coil-splitting.
Only issiue is that the pickups are a bit noisy I dont know why, could be my amp
But overall great sound.

The action is very low on this guitar which I like.
It just seems to be a wellmade guitar to me, even though it's 24-25 years old.
It still looks very clean and not too much wear. The wood is still fine, frets are bit worn but still well working.

This guitar will whitstand live playing it's very solid and stabile.
I have had two problems with this guitar, it can sometimes go out of tune, but if you don't bend the strings too much the tune will lastquite long time. And the other problem is the strapbuttons, one of them has actually fallen off but that's now fixed and it's not a big issiue really.
And I would use this guitar on a gig whitout backup, cause i have had this guitar for 9 years and it has never let me down

I have had this guitar for 9 years and it works perfect.
And if it got stolen I would got get one again!
I love the fat and rich sound on the neckpickup, and the neck works vert well for me.
But the pickups are bit noisy and that can sometimes be annoying. but I'm still playing it through a praticeamp and that's probably my problem.
And remember this guitar is a bit old so it's not perfect but overall a very good and wellmade guitar.

I'd go well with what the 2nd opinion said, i myself had fond memories of playin one of these in my younger years, when my older bro's friend had one, i later tracked it down to the guy he sold it to, and bought it from him for #70, probably around $125, bearing in mind it hadn't been really used and been in a drying cupboard for best part of 10 yrs, with the guy , the guitar is easily 18 yrs old and after re-stringing it, sounds as good as i'd hoped, i play it straight through a marshall V40 and it plays a very full clean sound on both low end and high end notes certainly no flat notes when playing high end right to 22nd fret , as well as when in overdrive. its also has incredable sustain regardless of pickup selection,
The only let downs i'd say about this model, is that it could have had more captavating body finishes, for appearance, the tuning heads tho don't do it much justice, any sustained shredding or extreme note bends will require frequent retuning here and there, also, the jack input, on mines particulaly is problematic wether its due to bad soldering internaly etc i'm not so sure, but this may or may not be a common problem,
Over all though , a steal if u can find one , because it should cost buttons to buy, and offers great durability , and can give both a nice Gibson bluesy feel when played clean, or can sound like a modern shredder , given the proper set up, neck action i found is also extremely versatile to.

donno

It's a 1980's model, made in Japan,
22Frets,
Its some form of wood, probably mohogany (quite heavy)
It has 4 knobs, 2 Volume knobs, 2 tone knobs, and 3 2-way selectors
Its fittd with 2 original humbuckers
It doesnt have a finish on the body and im not sure about the neck
its very SG like im probably say its an ibanez ax and an sg fused into one,
String through body bridge,
Original aria tuners,
It looks to be a maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard

The guitar fits my music style pretty well (heavy rock) and has a very bassy tone,
Im using it with a Marshall Valvestate 8040 40W amp, and a behringer 15W
It's not very noisy which is a good thing, but I always get lots of feedback because of the crappy input jack
It's not really a bright sound its more muddy and heavy
It looks to have tons of variety (all the features) but they actually dont effect it as much as Id hope.

I cant remember how well it was setup,
the pickups have been sitting nicely from day 1
The wood appears to have been losing its colour on various parts of the guitar which actually gives it quite a nice look to it, I dont really think the bridge has been holding out very well though

Id say it wood easily stand live playing (its so damn strong)
The hardware is very good ( except for the minor flaw in the bridge )
the strap buttons are solidly fitted
Yes I can depend on it, (strong)
I probably would use it at a gig without a backup, but id say it would be smartest to bring one :p

Never dealt with aria

Ive been playing about a year now (alot)0, I own an ibanez guitar aswell,
If it were stolen or lost I wouldnt buy it again because it doesnt really suit my needs for the style of music my band plays.
the main problem is the bridge and input jack, the things I like about it though are its rock solid build quality and quite substancial range of tones,
Price wise though its a gem

The CS-250 was manufactured during the early 80's. There were several other models in the cardinal series (CS) offered: the CS-200, the CS-300, and the CS-350. The CS-250 has a bolt-on 22-fret maple neck with Rosewood fingerboard and dotted inlays. The body is contructed of ash and its shape reminds me of an Ibanez AX series (similar to a Gibson SG). It was offered in two matte finishes: Walnut and Padouk Red; This particular one was Walnut.

The controls consist of 2 volumes, 2 tones, 3-way pickup selector, coil-tap and phase switch. The pickups are protomatic IV humbuckers. The tuners leave a little bit to be desired, but I'm not sure if they are original. The bridge is a Ray die-cast w/ through-body string mounting. The nut is made of bone I think, but it could be plastic.

Sounds really good through my Line6 Spider 112 and has a unique tone put out by its protomatic IV pickups. It can have a very grungy and muddy sound or a very clean sound...it's all about the settings you have. I have also used it with my Peavey Rage158 and Kustom TR12L practice amps and it sounded very good.

Action is very low and very nice to play. Overall quality is pretty good for a guitar that is over 20 years old (the CS-250 was produced from '81-'83). The finish is the original matte walnut it came with and could definitely use some work, but it still looks good.

The durability is pretty good, but I would reccomend you not use ribbon-wound (flat-wound) blues/jazz strings on it. The strings put a lot more stress on the bridge pieces and have broken two of them. I was already missing one bridge saddle. Other than that the guitar appears to have held up well and taken the abuse that previous owner(s) probably put it through.

N/A

I think it's great guitar and if you ever see one you should definitely consider buying it.