AZ2203N-ATQ (Antique Turquoise) Prestige. Made in Japan.
- AZ - Players Player Project
AZ is the result of years of testing, with many of the world's best guitarists as test pilots, with the aim of producing the ultimate guitar player. That means an extremely well-sounding, easy-to-play and stable instrument that you should be able to play virtually any style of music with. Roasted/baked maple necks for stability no matter how you travel around the planet and wherever you play. Stainless steel frets to make them virtually indestructible and feel smooth and polished no matter how much you play. A perfectly functioning tripod with an arm mount that won't come loose no matter how much you tug and pull on it. And all this with "TON" written on the forehead, No spec in the world means anything if it doesn't sound great, and this one does, it sounds better than great.
The series is available in two versions with 24 or 22 band necks.
24-band versions with HH pickup configuration and 22 with HSS or SSS.
The AZ neck is a modern neck with what Ibanez calls an oval C profile. A 1-piece Prestige neck in S-TECH treated maple. S-TECH is "nitrogen heat treatment" of wood and is a further development of what is normally called burnt/baked wood. In Swedish, this means that the wood undergoes a heat treatment in a nitrogen-filled heating process to remove water and resin from the wood. This makes the wood light, stable, durable and completely unaffected by changes in humidity. The wood also becomes waterproof and therefore does not need to be varnished. These properties make the neck extremely resonant, light in physical weight and with plenty of singing sustain (the same properties that really good old wood can sometimes have). A clear sound with unrivaled note separation. The guitar sings in a completely different way than the equivalent untreated wood and is hundreds of times more stable. The neck is finally treated with oil, which gives the guitar a well-recorded wooden feel, forget about sticky varnish getting stuck.
Neck profile.
Ibanez calls the neck AZ oval C, which describes it pretty accurately.
C with slightly more shoulders would also fit well. It's noticeably thicker than how Ibanez usually have their necks, but for that reason not fat or bulky. 20.5 mm at the first band and 22.5 mm at band 12. It feels modern and accessible at the same time as it feels traditional and familiar. The fretboard radius is a perfect compromise to be perfect for both chords and solos.
The transition between fretboard and neck is softly rounded called "rolled fretboard edges", giving a very smooth and busy feel.
The body.
The body is designed to be comfortable and without sharp edges, so you can stand or sit and play for hours. The rounding of the edges is softer on the back than on the front. The neck meets the body with Ibanez' new Super All Access Neck Joint, which is a further development of their proven All Access Neck Joint.
SAANJ makes the entire neck extremely accessible without cutting too much wood and starting to have a negative effect on tone.
There are new Seymour Duncan pickups called Fortuna.
Nicer, more vintage-smelling pickups than the other models' Hyperion pickups. Think lower output microphones more angled towards clean and less distorted sounds. You get a wider dynamic range with a wider frequency response. They are not better pickups than Hyperion, just different pickups.
The pickups are passive pickups with alnico magnets.
A compound radius fingerboard, from 228mmR to 305mmR.
The other AZ models are 305 across the entire fingerboard.
Simply explained for those not so familiar with radius numbers and meaning. Radius is the curvature of the fretboard, how flat or curved it is. In general, most guitarists find that flatter fretboards are better for soloing and less flat makes it easier to play chords.
The N-version fretboard is therefore less flat than the previous AZ models' fretboards.
The N-version is compound, which means it's more curved at the first fret and then gradually becomes flatter the higher up the neck you go.
