Jackson Stars ASL-j1e

This is an upgraded model with some real Seymour Duncans and an Ash body. On top of that, it has a very beautiful quilted maple top and a real floyd rose installed. There's really no difference between this and an MIA Jackson. The guitar has the following features:

Arched Ash Body with Quilt Maple Top
Maple Thru-Neck Design
Bound Ebony Fretboard with Sharkfin Inlays
Original Floyd Rose
Seymour Duncan Pickups (Custom and 59)
One Volume
One Tone
Three Way Switch

UTILIZATION

The first thing I noticed was that this guitar has a good amount of weight to it. I'm not a huge fan of heavy guitars, but considering what's being used here, it's not too much of a surprise to see this weigh what it weighs. The guitar itself was put together nicely. There were no issues with the finish, and the top looked cool. The fretwork was pretty good, and I didn't notice anything overly wrong with it, aside from the fact that the ebony could have used some oil and the frets could have been polished a bit better. This guitar actually has a real Floyd Rose which is pretty awesome.

SOUNDS

The guitar has real Seymour Duncans installed in it, and they sound great. Ash is a pretty low end and high end driven wood. Basically, it has strong lows and highs, but the midrange is a bit relaxed. The maple top on this also extends to the treble a bit. With the Custom in the bridge, it can get a bit bright, but it delivers an awesome sound once you start downtuning. The 59 in the neck produces a great lead sound that's fat enough to do some nice legato, but it's also bright enough to where you don't lose definition and can still cut through a dense mix. They're great pickups for nearly any genre you can think of, really.

OVERALL OPINION

If you like ash guitars, this is something you should check out. It's really a great guitar, and it looks good, too. It doesn't really need much out of the box other than a light setup. The pickups are good, the floyd is top notch, the wood is solid (in terms of tone), the construction is top notch, etc. All in all, this can easily rival a MIA model.