6 String IYV-IRK-300 Semi Hollow Electric Guitar 3T Sunburst, Right (IRK-300)

Looks good , plays well, sound good too! BUT NO, IT IS NOT A RICK ! But hell needier is the price!

Review of IYV 6 String IYV-IRK-300 Semi Hollow Electric Guitar 3T Sunburst, Right, (IRK-300) I received the one pictured (the fireglo sunburst type model) and I am very pleased at that. It is a beautiful guitar. There are a couple of minor finishing QC type issues. There is a little residual polishing dust near the neck pickup around one of the screws and along the edge of the pickup near the neck. No big deal. Mine is intonated very well, action is low, and the neck relief is spot on with no buzzing. There are no sharp fret ends. The frets are not polished as well as they could be, when you do a bend you can feel some roughness as the string moves (I’ll fix it when I change the strings). Tuners are basic sealed economy type tuners, but mine holds tune pretty well, new strings and some graphite in the nut slots will improve that I think. The fretboard is Jatoba, a wood I was not familiar with, but from what I’ve since read it is an inexpensive, but very acceptable perhaps more sustainable alternative to some of the common boards, such as rosewood, ebony or maple. The bridge and tailpiece both look great and are solidly made and set. The wood used in the top and back is attractive and visible through the finish. They even put clear coat inside the sound hole. Electronics seem to work fine. The volume and tone knobs both make considerable difference across their ranges. The pickups sound great to me. They are not real powerful, the clean tone is a bit jangly and has a vintage vibe to it, especially at performance volume. Using a little OD distortion the tone is tight and pleasant and sits well in the mix with a bass, flute, drums and keyboard. The band was complimented on the overall sound today. Overall, I like the sound. With the single coil pickups, the pickup design and the hollow space in the body the guitar has an airy resonate tone that actually sounds like it comes from a hollow body guitar (some semihollows just sound like solid guitars, not this one). It reminds me of the airy tone (that I like) of a cheap strat with a canoe cut under the pickups and pickguard, almost a natural reverb tone. Really nice for less than $170 US.

The bar is continually being raised on these cheap guitars from overseas. This IYV Rickenbacker copy is great and an unbelievable value at a buck sixty five. Cosmetically, the fire glow finish is beautiful and the matching paint job on the headstock & back of the neck is classy. The guitar came set up well. Intonation was almost perfect. I had to adjust the low E string a bit. Neck is straight. Frets are perfect. Guitar plays well up and down the neck. Neck is a little narrow. String spacing is a bit tight. Tuners are good. Guitar stays in tune even with aggressive playing. Nut is plastic but slots are cut to the proper height nice & low. The tailpiece and bridge design is quirky but functional. The tailpiece is floating and only attached by the strap button. It relies on the string tension to keep it straight. The bridge is a tune o matic style but it is not attached to the guitar at all. It sits atop a metal plate and relies on the sting pressure to keep it in place. When I took the crappy sounding strings off to change & oil the fretboard, the bridge came tumbling off onto the floor. The slots on the individual bridge saddles are cut shallow. If you bend aggressively the strings will probably occasionally slip out of the groove in the saddle. Out of the box, the neck pickup was considerably louder than the bridge which makes me think they use the same pickup for both positions. Both pickups come set low with a lot of space between the pickup & strings. I tried to raise the bridge pickup but the screws just loosened & the pickup height didn't change so I removed the pickup and discovered the pickups are screwed directly into the body (like a tele neck pickup). There is foam rubber glued to the bottom of the pickup which establishes the height so you can lower the pickups by screwing them down but loosening just makes the pickup all wobbly. I remedied this by putting a piece of foam in the pickup cavity and replacing the pickup so it sits higher. With the strings back on, I adjusted the height so the volume matched the neck. The pickups have a unique sound and I dig them. Real Rickenbacker pickups are single coil but I think these are humbuckers because they are very quiet. Bridge pickup is bright and sounds better with the tone rolled back a bit. Neck is warm and fatter. Guitar sounds best with both pickups on, using the neck volume like a tone knob to blend in more or less of the warmer neck tone. Pickups tone is nice & clear. Pummeling them with distortion yields a cool funky lo-fi kind of vocal growl with no squealing or feedback. If you want a guitar that looks and sounds different than most other electrics, this one is a good choice.

In my experience, inconsistent QC is one of the things that go hand in hand with buying inexpensive guitars. One can be nearly perfect and the next one, not so much. What makes this guitar good value is less to do with price versus quality and more to do with the relative lack of options for a Rick-styled guitar. If this were a Strat or LP style guitar, at this price point there are lots of options and as a result, I'd be less forgiving of an imperfection in the finish or some fret sprout or a high fret but for a Rick-styled guitar, I do forgive those things. The finish on mine was perfect and it sounds great. It had a number of frets that weren't fully seated and after addressing that I ended up doing a full fret level, crown and polish. I swapped the tuners (and I usually don't unless they're really clunky). Also not a fan of these bridges but they're part of the vibe of guitars like this so it's fine. In conclusion, you may get a perfect one or you may not. Even if you get one that needs some TLC and don't feel comfortable doing the work yourself, it's probably worth it for this style of guitar (certainly you'll spend way less than you would for the guitar this is styled after).

Guitar arrived well packaged and in good condition. Finish is reasonable with a few blemishes but nothing significant. Plays really well, good neck (needs an oiling) and frets are reasonable but could use a polishing. Surprisingly good tone from the pickups, with some characteristic chime from this sort of guitar. Setup ie action and intonation spot on, no need for adjustment at all. Pickup height needed adjustment. Bridge and hardware are reasonable quality and the electronics work well. No hum or feedback when played on a Fender gtx 100 amp. Weak points are the tuning heads and strings which are low quality but can easily be changed out. Overall very good value for money, and actually irrespective of the cost it is just a very decent guitar.