Aria Pro II MA-10 Magna Series

This sound is what i was looking for, for a long time... it's ability to be 'tinny' and sweet sounding, yet bassy and muffled, is a feature i use alot in music i play...
the only two things i dislike about this guitar are the fact that the strap buttons are sharper, mabey a different design, it broke my leather ended strap, but hey it was old anyway, and when a new set of strings are put on, you have to 'wear them in' or they jangle and it sounds awful, mabey this is common, but im new to guitaring so pardon any mistakes i made :-)

Now, im a very clumsy person, it seems to have held up great against my usuall knocks and scuffs!

I like this guitar, very much infact. it's a little heavier than my other guitars,but that is something i can just get used to

NOT SURE ON THE YEAR,MADE IN JAPAN I BELIEVE.22 TALL FRETS.HAS THIS STRANGE ARCHED TOP,FLAT IN MIDDLE,SLOPPED AT SIDES.1 VOLUME,1 TONE W/PUSH/PULL COIL TAP.S/S/H SET UP,NO NAME PICKUPS,W/PLATES.
PASSIVE ELECTRONICS.NOT SURE OF WHAT TYPE OF WOODS,VERY LIGHT WEIGHT,ALMOST THOUGHT IT WAS HOLLOW AT FIRST.IT HAS THIS FENDER SURF GREEN FINISH.STRAT STYLE W/DEEP CUTAWAYS.HAS A STANDARD FENDER STYLE TREMOLO.HAS THESE CRAPPY PLASTIC TUNERS THAT I WILL REPLACE.OILED MAPLE NECK W/WALNUT!!LAMINATED FRETBOARD WHICH IS AWESOME.I BOUGHT THIS AXE AT A PAWN SHOP AND THE GUY INCLUDED A GIG BAG,CABLE,AND AMP!!

WHEN I PLAY THIS AXE (AS W/ ANY I PLAY)I USE THE JOHNSON J-STATION.
FOR HEAVY DISTORTION I SUGGEST YOU USE A NOISE SUPRESSOR,BUT WHEN PLAYING CLEAN YOU WILL FIND THAT YOU NEED TO GIVE IT A BOOST OF GAIN BECAUSE IT IS VERY QUIET,AND THATS W/ THE VOLUME CONTROL MAXED OUT. THE COIL TAP COMES IN HANDY WHEN PLAY W/ DISTORTION DUE TO THE TONAL RANGES OF THE BRIDGE HUMBUCKER,IT GETS A VERY WIDE RANGE OF LOWS AND HIGHS.W/ THE TAP SWITCH PULLED IT GETS AMAZINGLY SCREAMING HIGHS,LIKE THOSE OF A FENDER STRAT STOCK SINGLE COIL. WHEN THE TAP SWITCH IS PUSHED IT GETS THESE EARTH RUMBLING LOW TONES LIKE THOSE OF A B.C.RICH.
AS FOR THE SINGLE COIL PICKUPS, HOWEVER I DO SUGGEST REPLACING THE W/ HIGH QUALITY PICKUPS BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO TONAL RANGE AT ALL,THEREFOR I DON'T USE THEM!
I RATE THIS SECTION ONLY FOR THE HUMBUCKER.

WHEN I PURCHASED THIS GUITAR I HAD TO READJUST THE NECK AND THE BRIDGE.THE NECK IS A BOLT-ON AND IT WAS SO UNSTABLE I COULD LITERALLY GET A TREMOLO EFFECT BY SHAKING IT AT THE BODY.I BOUGHT IT USED SO I DON'T KNOW IF THAT WAS FACTORY SET OR JUST SOME IDIOTS WORK.
THE BRIDGE WAS SET HIGH ALSO, SO THAT MADE THE ACTION EVEN WORSE,ONCE AGAIN I DON'T KNOW IF THAT WAS FACTORY DONE.
OVER ALL OTHER THAN THE ACTION,THE FINISH AND HARDWARE ARE LIKE NEW
THE SELCTOR SWITCH WAS MISSING THE BUTTON.BUT HAT WAS THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THE HARDWARE.

AS FOR RELIABILITY, I USE THIS GUITAR AS MY MAIN GUITAR.I DON'T PLAY ANY GUITAR LIVE WITHOUT A BACKUP.THE STRAP BUTTONS ON THIS AXE ARE JUST FINE I WILL BE REPLACING THEM W/ STRAP LOCKS,BUT I DO THAT WITH ALL THE GUITARS I OWN. THE TUNERS DO NEED TO BE REPLACED BECAUSE THEY ARE MADE OF PLASTIC WHICH IS THE WORST MATERIAL YOU COULD POSSIBLY USE FOR TUNERS.THE SINGLE COIL PICKUPS DO NEED REPLACED BECAUSE THEY SOUND HORRIBLE,WHICH IS WHY I ONLY USE THE HUMBUCKER.
AS FOR QUALITY OF CRAFTSMANSHIP ON THE BODY AND NECK I WOULD NOT CHANGE A THING.

N/A,I WENT ONLINE JUST TO FIND THE MODEL AND THIS IS THE ONLY SITE I FOUND THAT INCLUDED THE EXACT MODEL.
AS FOR REPAIR WORK I DO ALL MY OWN.

I LOVE THIS GUITAR BECAUSE IT IS IN NEARLY PERFEC CONDITION AND IS COMPATIBLE W/ ANYTHING I WOULD EVER WANT TO ADD TO IT.
SURE IT HAS A FEW POORLY DECIDED PARTS,BUT NOTHING THAT CAN'T BE REPLACED.
I WOULD DEFINETLY GO OUT ON A LIMB TO REPLACE THIS GUITAR IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO IT.
I OWN THIS ONE,A B.C.RICH WARLOCK,A FENDER JEFF BECK SIGNATURE STRAT,AND SOME CHEAP NO NAME GUITARS WITH HIGH DOLLAR HARDWARE.
I PLAY ALL MY GUITARS THROUGH A JOHNSON J-STATION,AND P.A. SYSTEM.

Made June 26 1990 (To Greg...When changing strings, unscrew the neck and look at the bottom. The date it was assembled should be there). Probably made in Korea. 22 freets, solid something wood. Probably basswood or poplar. Alder if I'm really lucky. 1 vol, 1 tone (coil tappable). 2 single coils, 1 humbucker, 5 way blade selector. No name pickups. Passive all the way. Not sure of ANY wood used on the guitar, but its still a good beater guitar. Dark Navy blue polyurethane finish. Superstrat body shaping, beveled curvature on the 'horns'. Really good tuners, hopefully made by Gotoh. Nonlocking. Plastic Nut. Very thin neck. Not as thin as many Ibanezes, which is good, but thinner than a Fender.

Its a good tone for the price i got it (free!). Using either a '75 Marshall 100w halfstack or a Fender Champion 110 practice amp. Got a lot of effects running, all true bypass, but it doesnt really matter. Not as noisy as a Strat, but it hisses with high distortion levels. Pickups are heavier than stock Fenders, which is cool...took it apart and they had baseplates on them(!) WOW! Really, I was surprised that they added baseplates. Korean made guitars usually have shite pickups. The bridge pickup isnt too hot nor too dark, but middled. Sounds ok when tapped. This guitars mainly for hard rock/metal...too heavy for light songs and not as chimey/strattish/'quackable' in midpositions.

Screwed up action (had to fix it totally), and the strap button eventually gave way. During a gig, the strap button came out, causing the beater guitar to fall to the cement. Im planning on stripping the finish, sanding the body down to smooth out the dents/gouges and refinishing it maybe stained red or another cool color like that.

It did NOT withstand playing standing up. Its a zero. Either it withstands live playing or you dont play it at all. I gave it a two for pity.

Its a solid guitar, but the strap buttons are shite. Junk junk junk. You cant really compare it to US made guitars, as they'd whip the shit out of it, so im just gonna say that its better than Squiers and some Fenders, but definitely not as good as umm...an Epiphone (KILLS Epis on staying in tune.) or an LTD.

Briefly:
Wilkinson floating trem Jim Dunlop (standard pickups), with switch to flick between single coils and humbucker style Thin neck, good access to 24th fret Bolt on neck, splice joint (arent they all at this price??!)

Very good for classic rock sound, nice thin neck makes soloing easier. Its is very good relative to the price. I found the pickups very sensitive, so those of you with smaller practise amps will notice a fuzzy sound, not a clean tone, at the higher frets on the top strings. The only way is to turn down the tone control on the actual guitar or adjust the gain on the amp. Otherwise, on big huge amps this baby will shred!! (NB, another way to beat this fuzzy tone, especially on solos, is to use Wah pedal, such as a Cry Baby, as a filter)

The floating trem is pretty good, but i reckomend you replace the plastic nut with a brass one, so the strings move better over the nut - not sticking on it, so the guitar doesnt fly out of tune every time you bend the trem.
A very nice finish and look to the guitar overall tho.

I have had no problems so far in any way, apart from changing the nut.

Never had to

A fantastic mid range guitar for anything classic rock based. In my bands, i use it as a main guitar, and the range of music goes from blues to extreme downtuned heavy metal!
No problems so far!!! If you find it second hand, in good condition...
.... pick it up now!!!!!

I am not sure exactly when this guitar was made, but I am guessing that it's more than ten years old. It was manufactured in Japan. It has 22 frets that are fairly wide and tall. The guitar has one volume knob, one 500k push/pull tone knob(for coil switching on the bridge humbucker) and a five way switch. The guitar has two passive single coils with a passive humbucker in the bridge position. I beleive that these are the original stock pickups. The guitar has an oiled mapple neck with a rosewood fretboard and the body is some type of hardwood. The finish is white. The body shape is like that of a strat with deeper, sharper cutaways. It's a lot lighter than a strat. This guitar has non-locking stock tuners.

The sounds that are produced by this guitar fit my guitar style of classic rock okay. The middle single coil sounds a bit thin though. The humbucker can cut through pretty well with heavy distortion and with the tone knob rolled down attentuating the higher frequencies it yeilds a creamy smooth allman style sound. It can also come close to the Clapton's Brown sound. I tend to use this guitar pretty dry straight through to my Crate GX40C solid state amp, altough sometimes I hook up my DOD TEC8 for noise gate or wah-wah. The pickups aren't to noisy although they have a little bit of hiss when the volume and tone pots are opened up all the way(no more than expected from single coils). The neck single sounds pretty good on clean settings, but when I distort them the sounds not very good at all. I save the humbucker for that. The humbucker in both single and double coil mode sound bright when clean. The is a lot of variety humbucker in the neck. I can dial in the sounds of a thick distored Les Paul or a dynamic sweet sounding strat. I wish I had new pickups, but otherwise its a good sounding guitar. If I got new pickps, I would probably get a Duncan Jazz in the neck a Dimarzio Brian May single coil in the middle position and a Dimarzio Super Distortion in the bridge position.

Since I got this guitar used I can't really tell you about the factory setup, but when I got it, it was just about perfect. The hardware is a little beat up and the finish has faded in some spots, but otherwise it's pretty good.

I think that this guitar would never go without a backup. I am, in fact, currently using it as a backup. I have replaced the standard strap buttons with Dimarzio Clip Locks(these work very well).

I contacted the Aria USA via the web page/e-mail, when trying to find information about when my this guitar was made. They never responded to my requests and I forgot about it after awhile. I don't think that they are a very reputable company.

I have been playing for about three years and I currently own five guitars. I certainly do not regret buying this guitar. In fact, if you can find one, I suggest you buy it. It this guitar were lost, I would try to replace it but I have only seen one other like it. I bought this guitar on impulse about four months ago. It was a great deal for $90.00!!