Related Tags
NAMM 2020: Ibanez announces 19 new electric and acoustic guitars
New additions to the acoustic AEG and Artwood series, and electric AZ and RG series.
Image: Ibanez
NAMM 2020: Ibanez has gotten its new year off to a strong start with a slew of fresh guitar releases ahead of Winter NAMM 2020. The brand has added a total of 19 new guitars to its catalogue for this year’s January convention.
Acoustic guitars
AEG200
The updated AEG series is championed by the AEG200, which sports a solid Sitka spruce top, okoume back and sides, nyatoh neck and Ovangkol bridge and fingerboard. It also comes with an Ibanez T-bar undersaddle pickup and AEQ-TTS preamp complete with onboard tuner.
Price (street): $499.99.
AEG70
The middle-child of the AEG line-up comes with a flamed maple top, sapele back and sides, nyatoh neck, and walnut bridge and fingerboard. The AEG70 comes with the same electronics as the AEG200, along with Ibanez Advantage bridge pins and chrome die-cast tuners.
Price (street): $399.99.
AEG62
The AEG62 is an entry-level guitar that comes with a sapele top, back and sides. A nyatoh neck and walnut fingerboard complete the tonewood profile while the electronics set-up continue with the Ibanez T-bar and AEQ-TTS.
Price (street): $299.99
AEG50
The AEG50 is another entry-level offering but trades the sapele top of the AEG62 for spruce. It is also available as a nylon-string guitar.
Price (street): $299.99
Artwood series (ACFS580CE, ACFS300CE, AWFS300CE and ACFS380BT)
The new Ibanez Artwood guitars are divvied up into two grand concerts (ACFS580CE and ACFS300CE), a dreadnought (AWFS300CE) and a grand concert baritone (ACFS380BT). All models feature a solid spruce top, five-piece pau ferro/mahogany neck and either pau ferro or okoume back and sides.
Another consistent feature across all four models is the use of Ibanez’s DP1 preamp and T-bar undersaddle and block contact pickup system, which adds in a pickup at the neck joint. Stereo outputs also allow users the option to run both pickups through a mono signal or split the undersaddle and block contact pickups to separate outputs.
Price (street): $1,199 (ACFS580CE), $799.99 (ACFS380BT), $699.99 (AWFS300CE and ACFS300CE)
Electric guitars
AZ2202A Prestige
The first AZ model to feature an all-ash body, the AZ2202A Prestige also comes with an S-Tech roasted maple fingerboard, dual Seymour Duncan Hyperion humbuckers and Ibanez’s dyna-MIX10 switching system, which delivers 10 unique pickup combinations for various voicing options.
Price (street): $2,149.99
AZ2204B Prestige
The AZ2204B Prestige sports the same dyna-MIX10 switching system and Seymour Duncan Hyperion pickups as the AZ2202A, but exchanges the neck humbucker for two single coils. This Super Strat-style guitar also comes with Gotoh Magnum Lock tuners with height-adjustable posts and a Gotoh T1802 tremolo bridge.
AZ Premium (AZ226PB, AZ242PB, AZ224BCG, AZ226, AZ242)
The five new AZ Premium guitars come with either poplar burl or Bocote top, but otherwise continue to feature the same specifications as the traditional AZ Premium series like basswood bodies, roasted maple necks, Seymour Duncan Hyperion pickups, and Gotoh hardware.
Price (street): $1,349.99 (AZ226PB, AZ242PB, AZ224BCG), $1,299.99 (AZ226, AZ242)
RG series (Limited-Run RG6PPBFX Premium, RG1121PB, RG1120PBZ, RG1127PBFX)
The limited-edition RG6PPBFX Premium comes with a standard American basswood body and features a Wizard neck made from 11 pieces of maple, walnut and purpleheart. Its pickups are a set of coloured Bare Knuckle Aftermath humbuckers that match the guitar’s Tropical Seafloor finish, and also comes wired to a coil-tap switch for greater tonal versatility. The RG6PPBFX Premium is one of the few non-multi-scale guitars to feature Ibanez’s mono-rail fixed bridge.
The new regular production RGs feature American basswood bodies, poplar burl tops and 11-piece Wizard necks. The complementing DiMarzio Covered Fusion Edge humbuckers can also be coil-tapped like the RG6PPBFX Premium via a switch located on the lower bout of the body. The RG1121PB and seven-string RG1127PBFX come with mono-rail fixed bridges akin to the RG6PPBFX Premium, while the RG1120PBZ uses the Edge-Zero II tremolo along with the dyna-MIX10 switching system.
Price (street): $1,599.99 (RG6PPBFX Premium), $1,399.99 (RG1120PBZ, RG1127PBFX), $1,299.99 (RG1121PB)
For more information on Ibanez’s new acoustic and electric guitars, click here.