Jackson Rhoads RRXT

Jacksons new X series is a good alternative for people wanting a neck through Jackson but do not want to pay thousands for a USA or Custom shop model. These guitars are some of the cheapest neck though guitars you can get in the market. Jackson is trying to market these like the old Pro series. This is the RRT model of the X series. This is the hardtail RR model. The guitar has a neck through body with a maple neck. The body is made from basswood The neck has a 22 fret rosewood fretboard with Jacksons signature shark fin inlays. The neck and headstock are fully bound. It has a tune-o-matic bridge with the strings going through the body. It has two Seymour Duncan humbuckers. They are Duncan Design pickups so they are slightly lower end Seymoour Duncans. The controls are simple with a volume for each pickup with a master tone and a 3 way toggle switch.

UTILIZATION

The neck through design means there is no heel so that is good too. Jacksons at these levels come with compound radius necks. This means that on the higher frets the radius is flatter making it easy to bend but on the low frets its more curved making chords more comfortable. The hardtail bridge means you have excellent tuning stability. The Jumbo frets let you really dig in and get a good action on the strings. The offset V shape provides good balance but the highest frets are kind of hard to reach because they are a bit deep into the body.

SOUNDS

The Duncan Design pickups are alright. They are not as good as a JB/Jazz set but the DNA is there. They are better than what you would have normally recieved in a guitar like this a few years ago. I would have preferred a set of active EMG's like some of the other X series guitars have but this is better than EMG HZ's. These pickups are pretty versatile even though this is a metal guitar. The bridge has nice crunch and decent compression which keeps the clarity good. The neck pickup is decently smooth. It kind of sounds like a Jazz clone. Its smooth but retains enough bite to not be muddy. It is alright. You could certainly get by with these pickups.

OVERALL OPINION

The X series is a nice line of guitars and it is well priced. You get much of the same features as the USA models but with import prices. If you dropped a set of high end pickups in this guitar it would sound every bit as good as a USA made RR1T. If you are looking at buying a Jackson I would check out one of these X series guitars before you go dropping a ton of money on a USA made model. You can save a ton of money by getting one of these instead and upgrading it to your liking.