IYV 6 String IP-350 TBK PRS Solid-Body Electric Guitar, Trans Black

I had heard/seen a lot of mixed reviews on this guitar. The packaging is really sparse, but mine arrived in good shape. Out of the box, all I did was tune it up and I ended up playing on it for an hour or so. I had ordered a set of black locking tuners and got a black roller bridge and bone nut. Here's some info I hope people find useful.I believe the strings it comes with are 10's. I will put on 11s but want to do the setup myself so that is fine. For me.The neck needed oil. I use lemon oil. The frets were tarnished, they needed a good polishing. The frets were all set and no super sharp edges. The guitar was intonated, or really close, out of the box. The fretboard just needs some TLC because of the way it is shipped. (Air and probably sea air have gotten in and tarnished the frets)The tuners it came with were surprisingly good. Both directions I could fine-tune. I had already ordered the black tuning keys (locking) but I would have kept the ones that came with it if I had not already ordered them. To avoid redrilling, get tuner pegs that have the screw at a 45 degree angle, not straight beneath the back part.The pots are dime size but they work fine. Three way switch was replaced with a gold colored, metal one I had lying around. The small size switch tip and the smaller sized (not imperial) knobs are what to use. Volume has a nice treble bleed and gives a wide range of options. Tone knob sounds fine. Easily upgraded, but no immediate need.Bridge is good. I like roller bridges so I am swapping it out. 52.5 mm string spacing and the larger posts is what you want to look for.Nut is 6mm deep by 43mm wide and about 8mm high. If you are swapping look for one that goes from like 8-something on the low E side to 7-something on the treble side. It is bone or some synthetic like that. It was fine and I only ordered another one is because I want to cut for the 11 strings. I popped mine out and took a lighter to it. It did not melt, but it also didn't "smell like bone" does.Scale length is 25 inches. Like a PRS.The neck is fat. It is not uncomfortable, but feels a lot like my PRS SE single cut. Wide and chunky. If you have small hands this may be an issue. I usually play Ibanezes and Strats?Teles so perhaps it is my perspective. Regardless, I like it. Cowboy chords are easy to play and all 24 frets had zero buzz when I played it out of the box.The pickups are good. I haven't checked the resistance, but they sound good. I have spare humbuckers that I can swap, but I am not going to. At least on first impression the pickups it came with are great.Mine weighs 7lbs almost exactly. There were a few buffs in the finish, but some regular guitar polish and a good rub got rid of them. The finish on this has issues, but I do not care about a little blemish, the overall is fantastic.Tips for others: (1) Use a Q-tip and old toothbrush when you oil. It will get out any of the little white things you see in the garin of the wood. (2) Polish your frets. They are nickel and on the guitar I received and the fretboard is that jatoba like you get on harley bentons. Close to rosewood. but not as nice to work with. They came from Vietnam with a poorly packaged box, they will clean up and shine just fine. (3) Keep a clean microfiber cloth around for the end. So you can really polish this up. It is a good looking guitar at any price. (4) Put a fresh set of strings on. These guitars have been sitting for months. They're nasty. Put whatever kind of 10's that you like on when you receive this.

First off, I can’t say I’m an expert on guitars in any way. I’ve had an acoustic stilling my my closet for over a decade and when the pandemic hit I bought a second had squire strat. I’m perpetually a beginner just try to put a few chords together. Although, I do like learning about guitars and I have even taken apart and fixed a junk guitar.Anyway, I just I wanted a guitar with a full width fret board (unlike my squire) and in particular I wanted a PRS style guitar — both, I figured, would motivate me to practice more. I saw other IYV guitars on Amazon for bargain prices do I started digging into the reviews and found particularly positive reviews on the IP-350, so when they became available I bought one. I have to say I am REALLY glad I did.My guitar came a day early which I wasn’t expecting because it happen to be Easter Sunday. (Amazon, I hope you pay your drivers extra for working holidays!) it was packaged in only a simple guitar box and protective wrapping so I could understand how one of these could be damaged in shipping. Mine, however, was undamaged. The guitar came without a gig bag; the only accessory was the Allen key for the truss rod.Unpacking it, I found the guitar to have good craftsmanship. The maple flame top is beautiful. At first I thought it was substantial in thickness (at least a 1/4”), but removing the pickups allowed me to see it is a 1/16-1/8 veneer. The top seam is just barely crooked, being centered at the bridge and angling up towards the low-E by the neck pick-up. The binding, which nicely imitates a 1/4” maple top is nearly flawless with just a couple of spots of the top black finish on the binding. The body finish was almost perfect with only the most minor chip by the upper horn.The neck is relatively flat (350 mm/ 13.7 in radius) and has 24 frets. I think the fret work is okay, but it’s not as good as the squires I have. There was one sharp fret around 22 that I filed down. The fret ends have significant tooling marks and are inconsistent in visual quality. The top of the frets are gritty. The fret markers and logo inlays seem to be natural material (shell or abalone) and the nut is bone!! There was a drop of top coat on my headstock logo.The tuners are unbranded but seem to work fine. They feel better than the ones I have on my squires. The 3-way switch feels solid as do the volume and tone pots which have to scratchiness. I opened the back cover and pulled off the humbuckers to look at the electronics. The back cavity reveals Korean made Samsung dime-sized pots. The wiring is a thicker gauge than what I have seen on other budget guitars and the soldering looks good. The back cavity is shielded with cheesy-looking foil tape but is otherwise not conductive. The humbucker cavities, on the other hand do have a black conductive paint or liner. The humbuckers themselves are branded “Destiny CNC Wound”.My guitar weighed 7 lbs - 14 oz, which seems light for a mahogany body guitar. The body is 2” thick, or perhaps a bit over 2” thick at its thickest but don’t feel thicker than my 1.5” squires thanks to a belly cut and the arched top. The guitar is really well balanced. The neck does want to dive or pop up in my hands, a least.The guitar came nearly perfectly set-up out of the box. Action is low and intonation is perfect. I just had to fuss with the E string tuner. I did change my strings from the stock 10ga to 9ga after just a day as a matter of personal preference. The setup only really required a minor adjustment at that point. However, I did find out that the string-through ferrules weren’t set in very tight and could fall out fairly easy. My understanding is this could be fixed with a drop or two of a semi-permanent glue, but I left mine alone. While I had the strings off I oiled the fret board and cleaned up my fret ends.I don’t play well enough to comment on the tones but to me the guitar sounds full or heavy. Unfortunately, the pick ups are microphonic. I have read this can be reduced by removing the metal covers, but I have not tried that.Overall I think this guitar gets high marks for the overall look, bone nut, natural inlays, mahogany body and maple top. The tuners and electronics are at least okay, if not very good, for a budget guitar. The fret work and pick-ups and ferrules are okay and just might be what you expect from a budget guitar.Put that all together, in my very NON-expert opinion, this guitar is still an very good buy at less than $160. Just looking at the basic features and craftsmanship (mahogany body, maple top, natural fret markers and logo inlays, bone nut) you could easily pay 2 times what IYV is selling these for. If you are looking for an inexpensive PRS-style guitar, my advice is when this becomes available, don’t think about it, just buy it. You will be happy you did.

This is an incredible instrument. Great value!! The design is fantastic, I absolutely love the finish. The neck is comfy and the fret ends are not sharp. It plays well and sound great right out of the box. It obviously needed tuning and will need new strings but what guitar doesn’t. I am extremely impressed and will be holding onto this one.