Vantage Avenger

I bought my avenger in DC back in 1983 and it still is a great ax to play. I did change the rear pickup to a demarzio super distortion.
It sounds and plays like a $1,000 guitar. I have compared it to true fenders and could not justify buying new, the neck action is so much the same. The pull out switches to isolate pickups is a very nice feature, which helps get almost any tone you need.

Solid body made of Maple ?
Maple neck and fretboard.
Brass nut and bridge.
Two humbuckers, coil splittabe with phase switching and series / parallel switching.
Gotta say that when the Japs started making guitars in the 70's they produced some real quality. Shame the rest of the world didn't appreciate it at the time !

Bought this guitar in the early 80's for $160.
Replaced the bridge pickup with one from a Yamaha RGX something.
Have a Seymour Dumcan Alnico Pro II to go is sometime soon.
Later inspired by the Gibson custom shop Jimmy Page Les Paul, I added phase and series / parallel switching to the already coil-splittable humbuckers.
It has a wide range of sounds from a Stratty single coil front pickup Ritchie Blackmore sound, to full bore out of phase Led Zep, to Clapton's "Woman Tone"

Was originally translucent red wine, but after seeing a hand finished 4Oth anniversary Strat many years later, I sanded it down and hand finished it in Ebony. The body is made from a great piece of wood (Alder or Maple, not sure which).
Brass nut and bridge.
Neck is maple with maple fretboard (?) and has a great low action
The neck is a little fatter than I'd like, but feels and play great.

Have had this guitar for over 20 years and it's been looked after pretty well.
Durable and dependable, I'm kicking myself for not buying another one that I saw in a pawnbrokers afew years back.
Have gigged at parties and jam sessions, usually play this and / or my customised Strat.

Never dealt with anyone, never had to.
Done all mods, setup, etc. myself.

What can i say ? I've sold this guitar twice and bought it back both times.
I have played many guitars including a couple of PRS Customs, which I must say are AWESOME for feel and action, but still don't put out the grunt that my Avenger does.
I also have a STrat (similarly hacked / cusomised) and did have an Ibanez RG520QSTB for a while, which was a great guitar but I don't play so much now and the old sentimental favourite won out).

Jap guitar from the 70s,
22 frets
Totally solid.. i paid 120 dollars for it 2 years ago and just got rid of the ugly (and very tough) black 2pac paint on it.
solid maple guitar.
Has two humbuckers, with coil tapping. Im doing this guitar up, the stock pickups are pretty decent, with the right strings and a decent amp i find they produce a pretty nice tone... sounds pretty boring on most solid state amps tho.. im swapping some Seymour duncans into it soon.
Passive electronics... right now... not sure what ill do in the future.
The finish was pretty good stock... it sure as hell was tough because this guitar has not had an easy life before i aquired it... we removed all the paint and stained it and had clear 2pac put over the top... looks great!.

Body and neck are solid maple with a rosewood fretboard.

I like the neck... it occupies the middle ground between a fender and an ibanez... actually its pretty much like the original Ibanez Wizard necks.. so i mean between a fender and a wizard II...

Very Ibanez style guitar.

Has a standard strat style bridge, the only thing id really fault this guitar on, because its rubbish, (not sure if its original on my guitar tho) replacing it with a gotoh soon..

the tuners i happen to know are original... and after 35+ years of abuse they still kick butt, im replacing them purely because they are just trashed.

I play a lot of church music, Hillsong united and Planetshakers, however I used to be a metal head and this guitar was more than adequate with the right amp and pedals.

I currently run a Peavy Studio Pro 65 watt amp, which has the transtube tech in it.

Pedals include a Digitech multifx pedal (they suck... dont buy one) but i normally just use the distortion on the amp, or my Boss Metalzone.

Its not noisy.. the electronics are fine, good variety of sounds... no unusable tones really.

I dono how to really describe it because its one guitar then you touch the coil tap switch and its another guitar.... basically its an Ibanez RG all the way when you play it normally.. then coil tap it and its very strat like in sound.

Going for SD pickups soon so yea who knows what it will sound like

Guitar was over 30 years old when I got it so i dont know, when i got it the poor thing played like crap. the nut has had it from 30 years of abuse, the bridge has just wanted to give up.

a lot of the soldering needed redone, after 30 years what can you expect? I suspect its been stuffed around with at some point in its life tho.

quality of the wood is good... the guitar is VERY heavy though, heavier than mahogony bass guitars.

This guitar has lasted. I got it first, then went and bought a Strat copy and a Les Paul copy.. both of which cost me more than this guitar, and got bored with their tone, because they really only had one tone, so i ditched them for an accoustic electric, im keeping my vantage forever though.

The hardware has lasted a long time, and the guitar has obviously been thrashed its whole life (paint damage on the side made it obvious the previous ownder didnt care, obviously owned by a thrasher) yet its still all in working order!

the Finish ruined many sanding pads on the belt sander to remove. its durable! trust me it took a few hours of my life to remove it.

Strat buttons are solid as anything, ones inside the horn... no need for straplocks here.
unfortunately they are also UGLY as anything. dont suit hte rest of the chrome hardware.

I have depended on it, other than finding a replacement jack plate (thankyou Ibanez for making them!!! lol)
I have never had any issues with it (the original plastic plate broke... as did my replacements i bought at hte music shop... till i found one from an Ibanez RG and used that instead)

I've been playing a few years, this guitar was found by a family friend who was getting me a guitar for cheap, he found it in a junk shop in a box and we put it back together but never got around to realy fixing it up. I wish i had have owned a more decent amp at the time i bought it, it pushed my 40 watt amp into total overdrive unless i used the coil taps. so i never discovered the best tones of my guitar till i bought the peavy.

Love it! Buy one and trick it out, you cant buy a guitar that good for the money! i mean you can stick all the good hardware on it, and not spend near a thousand dollars? sounds like value to me!