Ibanez SA160

-1 humbucker, 2 single coils close to noiseless I won't even change them out, they sound just right for what I want.

-Maple neck with good solid bridge hardware, also has decent tuners.

-bridge seems to be set a little far back but anyone can get used to it quickly.

-Set up well when I bought it without buzz and has good sustain. Neck feels great, easy bends!

-First Ibanez I have owned, now I know I will own more.

-Good looking aggressive strat shape with excellent finish (Quilted Maple)

Very versitile guitar without hardly any noise off the pickups. Pickups are on the bright side generally But all the switch positions give you different sound with which to work with. Nice sustain.

No flaws that I can see, Although my dealer didn't give me a whammy bar with it. Action is perfect! Really nice hardwardware for the money. Great Neck. I like this guitar more for playablitiy than my 2k Strat.

no problems, Seems to be very well built.

I've heard good things....

This is the best guitar I have owned and for the money it's incredible! I have owned around 15 guitars now and I like this one the best. Right now I also own a high end Strat. This guitar blows my expectations away. A real steal for the money. I urge all serious players to own this beauty. A very versitile axe.

22 fret mahogany neck, sleek S series body, volume and tone knobs, detatchable tremelo bar, humbucker on the bridge. two single coil pickups in the neck and middle position, multi-piece staggered bridge

this guitar well suits punk and metal music. I use it with a NOBELS OD1 overdrive pedal and a RANDALL JAGUAR amp. The humbucker gets good bright tone (perfect for lead) and the single coil pickups get good deep tone.

the guitar was set up very well. pickups and bridge were adjusted correctly. there were no flaws at the time of purchase

Good solid hardware, strap buttons are large and solid, its a dependable guitar and i would use it at a gig without a backup.

22-fret mahogany body , one of the best 5 slot and one
volume and one tone knob the floyd rose is a pain to take the strings out and the whammy bar completely unecissary unless your too lazy to slide your fingers the only other thing you could ask for is dimazio pickups

i just got the guitar so really cant rate itbut so far it works perfect for punk (what i play mainly) and unbelivably rage against the machine with a cuople of pedals

guitar set up perfect the fretboard is fast as hell and it slides and works like a dream

this is nly my second guitar but it seems like it could suvive a hurricane.the only way i could imagine the knobs coming of is doing what i like to call the infamous nirvana and through the guitar up and let it smack you in the face and hit the floor the strap buttons in a perfect position i havent played a gig but when i play with it in my band it hasent even come out of tune once

culdnt care less

this guitar is th closest thing to perfect for a average price guitar and would be great for beginners to pros and guitar gods

made in korea
22 medium frets
mahogany body, thin S body.
mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard
thin, fast neck
1 tone knob, 1 volume knob
5 way selector
as2 single coil in the neck and middle position, ah4 humbucker in bridge
black finish
Satellite 30 trem, non locking

after some mods, sounds very good for my style. i play mainly death metal. stock pickups weren't too bad, but are kind of muddy and weak (their stock). bright tone. after adding an EMG81 in the bridge position, and 2 EMG SA single coils, it's cabaple of good cleans, and savage distortion. mahogany body is very warm sounding. i play it through a crate mx120r.

i bought it set up well, low action. it was all in good shape. i have raised action greatly, to compensate for low low tuning, and it sounds very good now and plays very smooth. neck is very nice. finish is beautiful. it is light-weight yet strong.

quite reliable. finish should last as long as i own it. i would gig without it, since it's my only axe.

n/a

after some customization, i am very happy with this guitar. the quality is much higher then the low price-tag. i like this guitar better than many other high-priced guitars.

Korean Made, 22 fret, no pickguard,Mahogony body with quilted maple top in amber finish, S/S/H powersound pickups, 5 way selector switch, one volume, one tone control. Mine came with a soft gig bag and a Marshall G30RCD, picks, really good strap and lead, and an alum key. The Tremelo is an Ibanez made SAT30, quite similar in appearance to a wilkinson trem, and boy does it hold tuning like a god!!!

As mentioned, playing through a Marshall G30RCD(nice practice/possible home recording amp), no effects as of yet, no footswitchable gain, which is a bugger. On clean, you must play it through the neck pickup, casue the mid just soudns like crap all the time and the humbucker sounds like you're playing ythe guitar in a tin can. On the neck its sounds nice and smooth, does a good reproduction of clean American Hi-Fi music liek another perfect day. put distortion on(the G30RCD has it in spades), mnust be played though humbucker and you get a really swampy muddy sound which is fantastic for grunge and metal, but no so good for punk, which is what i mostly play. you can't get good early propagandhi sounds out of this, which is annoying

perfect, no buzz, even on the single coils, only flaw it teres a 1 mm gap between the end of the neck and the body, but that migh tbe deliberate, i dunno. the woods are all fantasticly smooth and pretty, dark rosewood and beautifly mahogony

all the hardware looks solid as hell, this thing is build like a brick shithouse. i dont gig yet but i wouldn't use a backup for this, its looks geourgoeus and i really dont think this it gonan let me down

dunno

This is an amazing guitar, starter guitar price for what really is a semi professional piece of work

Korean made, 22 fret rosewood fingerboard, mahogany body, S/S/H config. 1 Volume, 1 tone control, 5-way switch. Standard SAT-30 tremolo, no locking nut.

I play mostly rock and progressive type music. Satriani, Creed, etc. I currently am going through a Marshall VS65R, but I have played this guitar through a Line 6 Spider, Marshall DSL, and Vox AC30. The guitar has very good tone for the price level. The humbucker gets good gain and is pretty quiet for a stock pickup. I can get good sustain and harmonics even with the nice light contoured body. The neck single coil is a bit noisy but has a decent sound. The middle pickup is noisy and worthless. I just screwed it all the way down to keep it out of the way. I like the the fact that it doesn't have a lock nut because I like to use alternate tunings and don't use the tremolo at all (I don't even remember where I put the bar). The bridge keeps good tune for my playing style but I don't know how well it would do with heavy tremolo use. The tuners have been good to me, like I said I use them a lot to tune to an open D, drop D, all flat, and they keep their position great. All and all this is a very quality guitar for the price. I have no reservations about playing with it out or in the studio. Only possible change would be putting in better DiMarzio pickups.

I like the action set pretty low, with the medium frets I can get down pretty low before it starts buzzing too much. With a little tweaking to the bridge rockers you can get just about any action you want. I also like the finish on the guitar, I got the grape color (looks blue to me).

I have only had the guitar about a month but I have had no problems with it at all. I wouldn't hesitate to take it out on a gig.

I haven't dealt with them.

As I mentioned above, in this price range you will be hard pressed to do any better. I played the entire Ibanez S-series before I bought this guitar. Other than the different hardware (Floyd Rose, DiMarzio pickups), the high-end Ibanez guitars felt no different. I don't use the tremolo so a Floyd is a pain in the ass to change strings, tough to retune, and I can change the pickups for $50 if I want. So unless you really bang on the tremolo, I don't see the need to blow more $$ on a higher priced model. Save your money and buy a better amp. This guitar is a real player.

Mahogany body, S/S/H-pick-ups and a very special tremolo bridge called Satellite 30... doesn't hold tuning as good as a Floyd Rose, but better than standard bridges. Besides, I've also found it annoying how difficult and long the process of changes strings and tuning them is on a Floyd Rose. I actually like this new trem system and guitar alot!

The only thing I miss is a neck-humbucker instead of a single pick-up...

I'm actually a bassplayer and bought this bass for homeplaying, so I didn't care that much for the sound! It's a standard Ibanez with a cold, grainy sound when the switch is set at the bridge pick-up (the humbucker). But, unlike RG-models, this guitar can also give you some really fat'n'rich tones just by turning and twisting some knobs! I've never really liked the RG-models and that's probably why I bought an SA-model instead!

I use it with a Peavey combo-amp (as said, for homeplaying only) and a Boss Metal Zone pedal and the sound exceeds the price! Although, you do get alot of feedback when using a great amount of distortion with the neck pick-up...

The guitar was set up perfectly, but that's really a personal issue and tastematter, right? When I bought the guitar, the volume knob was too tight and I could barely twist it, but I got it fixed in a couple of seconds... other thean that I was content.

However, I did have too tightened the bridge due to low tuning, but that is something you would have to do by yourself anyway!

I've never played live with this thing, but I do think it would last a whole gig without breaking down. The finish would probably wear off after intensive gigging, but that's a normal thing with "low-priced"-mahogany guitars.

The strap-buttons are stronger than others on guitars I've owned and that's comforting to know. I would depend on this guitar live, but I would bring a back-up if I had one.

Never dealt with them.

The Ibanez S-series are usually expensive and contain a lot of features like the slim, but phat body, Floyd Rose trem-system, etc... The SA-series as reviewed here is more or less a low-budget version of the "S", but has almost everything like it, except the trem-system! Instead it has a new-patented trem called Satellite 30. For the low price you get a pretty good guitar with versatility and a quality name on the headstock. If this guitar was stolen, I'd buy a bass instead since I'm actually a bassplayer, but I would be p*ssed off.... all in all, this is a great guitar for a low price and is perfect for both beginners as well as pro's!

22 medium frets
mahogany body
1 tone knob, 1 volume knob
Pickups: as2 single coil in the neck and middle position, ah4 humbucker in the bridge position
black finish
Satellite 30 bridge
SA mahogany neck

I play a little of everything, but the stuff I write is comparable to Alice in Chains, A Perfect Circle, Cold, Creed, and Smashing Pumpkins. I use it with an Ibanez Chorus/Flanger and a Boss Phase Shifter, Equalizer, Noise Gate, and Octaver to a Line6 Spider. This guitar rules! I love the heavy, distorted sounds through the brige humbucker and the clean sounds through the single-coil neck pickup is amazing. You can play practically any music through this guitar!

The guitar feels great. My first guitar was a Squire Strat, so I've gotten used to the double-cutaway design, so this guitar fits me like a key! Everything feels like the guitar was custom-made for me.

I've only had it a short while, so I can't answer this.

Never had a reson to deal with Ibanez directly.

Pardon my French, but I fucking love this guitar, man! I originally got an Ibanez RG (at the time I was unaware of what a pain-in-the-ass a Floyd Rose tremolo was), but brought it back, saw the SA and fell in love. This guitar is a definite keeper! If it were ever stolen, I'd hunt the bastard down, shove this guitar up his ass and then kick it for putting it out of tune.

Ah, the guitar. Manufactured in Korea I believe. It has 22 medium-sized frets with a laminate top. The onboard controls included volume and tone pots (as if you need any more) and a 5-way pickup selector switch. The pickup configuration is H-S-S and I dig that because it opens up a tonal range not possible with some other guitars (even some top-end planks out there). The stock pickups are Ibanez "powersounds" and sound rather shrill at times, which can be great at during some songs! Also, if the highs and mids are up too far, some hum becomes audible, but for the most part, I barely crank the mids (too snarky for me). This can be cancelled out with the tone pot and the amp EQ. The HUM/SING combo is my favorite. Great for quirky Beatles rhythym and quirky Pink Floyd stuff (even Radiohead stuff too). Turn on to the bucker' with an overdrive and you reach blues/rock/grunge haven. Add a chorus pedal and add some midrange to achieve a John Petrucci type sound! the neck is maple I believe with a rosewood fretboard and is quite playable (not only that, but fun to play!). Great frets. No buzz. Double-cutaway (gorgeous curves). Very light and thin. The bridge is a floating trem which I rarely use except for surf-style dips (with minor chords....drool) and not much else. It rarely goes out of tune even when I bang on it. The tuners are pretty basic. I plan to get locking tuners on there to achieve some deeper dives with the tremolo arm (I can't surf-bend all the time!). It's a great piece of wood! Great looking finish as well! This is far from a beginner instrument. Call it intermediate, I call it fun.

I currently play a mesh of pink floyd, radiohead, foo fighters, jazz, blues and jazzy folk shtuff (think dave matthews). Naturally, a guitar has to cover a lot of bases for it to be acceptable to me. This did it. I try to minimize effects but I use an Ernie Ball volume pedal (couldn't survive without that), A Korg tuner, an Ibanez Turbo Tube Screamer (love it), and a Zoom 507 reverb (I know, I know. It sounds great thru my rig though). All this plugged into my TubeWorks TD-752 100W 1x12 tube combo amp. It's noisy when you want it to be, but hums a bit when the highs on the guitar or amp are maxed. Back it off and you should be fine. The humbucker is fairly bright and produces great artificial harmonics. The H/S combo produces a lush background suitable for arpeggiating chords (clean or overdriven). I'm planning on replacing the pickups in the future. Possibly EMG's or DiMarzio's. Not quite sure yet though. The guitar is simple. This is how it should be. I get all the sounds I need with what I have. (Intersting note: I've tried other SA-160's and they didn't sound nearly as good as the one I have. Wood makes a difference!)

The guitar setup was great. Good action, no buzz. The frets are good, but I've played better (on Gibson SG's for example). It didn't necessarily respond well to lighter guage strings, but I prefer medium guage strings anyway (.10's)for versatility as I play advanced chordal things and solo as well. The pots have gotten a little noisy, but nothing a good tech at a guitar shop can't fix. The selector is a little noisy at times, but not really. Everything has noise though. Other than that, it looks and plays great!

This is my main guitar other than my Dean RSE Exotica Acoustic/electric. It feels very solid. The finish is THICK. Couldn't chip it with a power drill. The strap buttons come a little loose, but this is very easily fixed. I depend on it. For now, this is my number one.

never dealt with Ibanez.

I've been playing long enough to know that it's not the gear you have, it's the songs you write. You could write a song by pounding on a desktop and yodeling and if it sounded good and you would have a good song.Again it's not so much the medium as it is the message. not to say you shouldn't care about your gear. Tone is very personal. It must be innovated, not emulated. If lost, I might buy it again. I might get a Yamaha Pacifica 112. I really like those too (great necks). My favorite features? Versatility. Tone. Playability. Everything else is in the fingers, and all after that is an afterthought or mere coloration. All in all a great sounding, affordable hunk of tree.

I just bought a 2001 Korean made Ibanez SA-160. Before i continue, let me get a few things straight. 1)i am not a beginner, i have been playing guitar like crazy for 8 years now. 2)i didn't buy this guitar because it was cheap. i have spent thousands of wasted dollars on the "big name" guitars out there. i have owned countless strats, a tele, a gibson les paul standard, a carvin, and i've played everything else there is out there. With that out of the way, i shall continue. The guitar has 22 medium frets. The fretwork is great. It's one solid piece of super light mahogany. I love it. It feels so nice. The contours of this guitar seem to merge with my hips. It has one tone knob, one volume, and a 5-way selector, which is very nice. Anyone who thinks they need more than that is kidding themselves. As if anyone in any audience is going to destinguish between more than five different tones...please. i can hear them now..."oh, did you hear how he had the tone knob set for the coil tapped humbucker in the neck position?? oh, that was nice." Whatever! If you can't make a guitar sound beautiful without a thousand different functions, then you need to practice a little more. :) okay, the guitar has a S/S/H pickup configuration. These are the stock Ibanez pickups, passive of course. They make this model with the AH series pickups, i believe, but i am replacing them anyway, so i bought it with the cheap ones. I plan on throwing in two EMG "S" single coils, and an 81. Once that is done, this guitar will be my all-time favorite guitar, no joke. The neck is super fast, maple with a rosewood fingerboard. The action was already set up really nice. You know how usually when you pick up a guitar brand that you haven't played much, it always feels a little weird to you? Well, when i picked up this guitar for the first time, it felt like melted butter in my hands. I couldn't believe it. I felt like i had been playing this very guitar my entire life. The finish is a beautiful Candy Apple Red. Unlike most Ibanez paint jobs which are thin and often chip, this is solid, detailed work. I haven't dropped it yet but i have read in other reviews how dropping it didn't even phase the paint job. The bridge is actually what first attracted me to the guitar. I have been playing a lot of Metal riffs lately, that is why i was looking at Ibanez in the first place. All the other models have the Floyd Rose tremolo, which i hate. then, there are the really crappy looking bridges that look like you could twist them in half. The bridge on this guitar is really solid. It boasts a string-thru body construction with a basic "strat style" tremolo. i took the arm off because i won't be using it. The tuners are Ibanez stock. Get this, i went in one day and played this guitar. It was slightly out of tune. I had the clerk hold it for me so i could purchase it in a couple of days. He took it down to the basement. Two days later when i returned, he went right down and got it. I sat down to tune it up and play it, and to my amazement, it was still in perfect tune!! These tuners are really solid and turn very smoothly. Don't think you are getting some cheap "squier" type tuners. I've had it home for quite a while now and it holds its tune very well. As i said before, the neck is wonderful...very fast/thin. I love it. This is the best guitar purchase i have made, period. But, it doesn't have a TON of features...hence, the lower rating. Features=Waste of $$$

I play Hard Rockalternative-Technometalpunk. That's the only way i can describe it. This guitar suits it perfectly. I play through a Fender Hot Rod Deville for my cleans, and a Peavey 5150II for my ear piercing thrash. The stock pickups amazed me. They are the best sounding stock pickups i have EVER heard. Nevertheless, i am switching to EMG's. Who wouldn't?

Now, here is where this guitar really shines, and in my opinion, the only place it really needs to shine. Everyone who is a serious player is going to buy the guitar for these reasons and then make changes to meet their personal specs. As i said earlier, the action and fit of this guitar are wonderful. DO NOT look at this guitar as a "beginner" model, shoddy, cheap whatever...it's a good guitar. If you want an ibanez, and you are going to change the pickups anyway, there is absolutely no reason not to get one of these. i played all the RG's, the universe, the Satriani, and i liked this the best.

This guitar is extremely durable. It has the thickest, nicest looking paint of any of the Ibanez models. I had an RG7620 sent to me well-packaged in the mail and when it got to me it was chipped all over the place. It was really brittle. This is much thicker...much,much thicker. I would definitely use this guitar without a backup. It's built like a tank. The knobs can't be wobbled, the bridge is rock solid, and the switchblade is nice and tight.

I've never dealt with them.

I'm a longtime player. I've played and owned them all. I know what i'm talking about. I will never buy an overly expensive guitar again. This guitar is perfect. Well, it will be once i get the EMG's installed. If it were stolen, i would buy the exact same guitar again, no questions asked. I love everything about it. I love the design, the quality, the sound, and the $$$tag! I compared it with every other guitar in New York Music's arsenal before i bought it. It doesn't have the luxury of a PRS, it doesn't have a plethora of control features like a decked out Carvin, and it doesn't have a Quilted Maple top with 80 layers of clear coat. It's a guitar, you know, the instrument that you make music with. If you want something to hang on your wall and impress people with...go shoot a moose.