Aria Pro II FA-70TR

I bought this in 2000. It's your typical jazz-box (es175-style). Slightly original body shape - which is very pleasing. With old style Aria headstock shape (similar to old style Ibanez)- much nicer than the new style (similar to modern Ibanez). Made in Korea. 20 frets. I assume it's a laminate top. 2 passive Humbuckers with 3 way selector, 2 volumes & 2 tones. Rosewood finger board with nice ornate inlays. Triple bound body, neck & headstock. Sunburst - obviously! Large Bigsby style trem (stock).. which I don't really use to be honest. No case supplied. A jazz-box is never gonna be a great all rounder, but this certainly has more features than most.

I use it for mainly jazz & jazz/funk. For this purpose it's perfect. Do some tremelo picking on this baby and the clarity is amazing! Won't change a thing on it. Played es-175's, es-165's (Herb Ellis), Epi's (Broadway, Joe Pass, modern Howard Roberts) - this one just felt right. I does jazz no problem. Recently took it to some jam sessions (non-jazz) in my area & so many people came up to me afterwards and inquired about my guitar and told me how good it sounded. The output is huge compared to the regular solid bodies the others had. The only problem is that the bass notes can sound a bit huge. I rarely venture off the neck pickup - but sometimes use both for a bit of funkyness. I wouldn't use any effects with it - they always seem to cheesy and the guitar seems to have so much character of its own that I wouldn't want to hide that. It's certainly no Parker Fly when it comes to range of sounds, but what it does do it does well.

No cosmetic flaws. The thing came with light guage roundwound strings, which I immediately changed to heavy flatwounds. It did not come with a stap button on the neck joint - which is annoying, but I soon remedied that. In terms of finish - perfect. However this is a Korean guitar & compared to a Gibson it does look quite cheap. I do not find it an easy guitar to play - but it is my only archtop. For this reason the mark is fairly low.

Seems fairly solid (for an archtop). The gold has tarnished a bit. I would gig with out a backup - but I think most archtop players would say the same.

Fantastic. I'd played one of these (the FA70, which is the same but without the trem) & I new that I wanted one. So I asked my local store (Kingfishers in Fleet) if they could order me one in. They rang Aria and told me that they had stopped making them & were changing the design - new headstock & all (which I didn't like). But there was one left in the country, but with a trem. So that's the one that I've got. I've been very impressed with both Aria & Kingfishers

I just love it. I own quite a few guitars: a Musicman Silhouette which is my workhorse, a pre-Gibson Steinberger with a transtrem (lots of fun, but not really my cup of tea), a 90's Strat with custom shop pickups, a handmade electro classical, a cheap resonator. I play through various fender amps (generally fairly cheap ones) and use a basic pedal board (morley wah, rat, boss acoustic simulator, boss eq, boss delay & boss chorus)- however i don't use the board with this guitar. I have played professionally all over - including cruise ships and also teach. I love this guitar and if it were stolen I would hold little chance of being able to replace it - but i would try. It doesn't do everthing - but i love it (even though it's a bitch to play)!