Re: NGD! My wife is gonna kill me...
^Damn, that's a wide gap. Not surprised Indnesian made LTDs and Ibanez Premiums are popular in Europe.
Yeah if you don't care about image/ perception, get your money worth with the LTD. HS is my favorite setup. I have an Ibanez RG3 with HS config, reverse headstock, very cool guitar. Enjoy your LTD in good health!
Not only the price gap, but the intended use are major factors in how much should a player invest in a guitar. There are major professional acts that tour and record with LTDs. From my experience, the gap is due to minor tonal differences, the E-IIs being a little bit more defined, but nothing that can't be compensated by amp or effect settings.
Apart from lower end LTDs, the market over here in Portugal does well on the Deluxes or at least 400 model series. I owned an EC-1000 in amber sunburst that I've sold for the same price I bought it for (the money then went in a Gibson Les Paul Traditional). Of course ESPs are more expensive even second hand, since there are very few available, but they usually remains on sale for long periods of time.
Side note, my biggest mistake was selling an awesome sounding Ibanez RG527R LTD, since after I sold it I got the info that it was a limited edition model, of only 50 were ever mad. Years later I tried a Prestige, and found it lacklustre. One day I strarted jonesing for a natural finish SuperStrat and ordered a Premium limited edition RG870RWZ, MII. The stock pickups sucked (I hate DiMarzios and EMGs), but after swapping them for a PATB-1 set, it's even more awesome than the RG I had before.
Paid half the price of the Prestige, including the pickup swap. and I don't mind the soft case it came stock with.
My tech tells me I've got an eye for deals, regardless of brands. When I got my LTD ST-213 Ash (Strat clone) back from being modded, another client of his were at his workshop, joking about my guitar, saying it it looked good but wouldn't sound as his American Strat. My tech then asked me if his client, a known player over here, could play it, and I said yes. It was awesome as his jaw dropped, and then told my tech he would sell his American Strat and buy 5 LTDs and mod them all.
Will enjoy this one, definitely! Rock on!
On a serious note: have you thought about custom bobbin colors instead of the zebra? Maybe you could find some solid colors pretty close to that reddish fade part of the guitar and slip it through floor shop custom... I'm happy if you like it that way, but that ebra just rubs my OCD the wrong way.
