IRK-300 Semi Hollow Electric Guitar 3T Sunburst (IYV)

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.

I’m actually impressed! I have a friend who I recently got started with guitars. He really admired my FireGlo Rickenbacker 330, which is easy to understand since it is a stunningly beautiful guitar. So for Xmas I decided I would get him this relatively inexpensive guitar. My main thought was that it would be a great piece of wall art for his office and an incentive to keep learning to play. I had actually watched several videos on this guitar and all of them indicated that while the bridge pickup was pretty decent, the neck pickup always sounded totally dull, muted and low output. But I have to say that in the last week that I’ve been “testing” and setting up my friend’s new guitar, I am actually pretty impressed! Both pickups sound pretty decent and have an appropriate sound for each location. Now I’m not saying that this guitar sounds anything like my Rickenbacker, nor does it match any of my Strats, Les Paul’s or others. But I will say that it does have decent sound in all 3 switch settings and sounds like a pretty decent guitar. Which for the price is somewhat amazing! Overall the fit and finish is really pretty danged good! It is a nice looking and feeling guitar. Not just for a “cheap” guitar, but for any under $1000 guitar. Didn’t have any fret sprouts (which many reputable brands do have nowadays), the finish is well done and even the tuners are reasonable. And pretty inexpensive to swap out a great set of Gotoh Locking tuners if you plan on keeping and using this. I have to say that I was expecting a lot less. Been playing and collecting guitars for decades and this one is really fun to play! Obviously not going to replace my Ricky, but I’m sure my friend will really enjoy this! Assuming he keeps up his lessons! 😂

I could write a super long review on this guitar, but I will try to keep it clean and simple Good: Came with LOCKING tuners! Unbranded but very decent quality. Nothing loose, sloppy, or overly tight feeling Bone nut was cut properly and did not need redressing. In my experience budget guitars almost always have issues with nut slots being cut badly, poor quality plastic material, or nut needing totally replaced..NOT the case here Fretwork is outstanding. ZERO sharp edges or dead spots. All level. Better work than was on my PRS SE CE. The only sub $1,000 guitar w/ fretwork this good is Firefly Pickups have a nice chimey, vintage voicing w/ good range of tonal options you can squeeze out. Microphonic but I like that, you may not. Keep that in mind. The bridge/tailpiece, pots, switch, etc are not bad but not exceptional either. They do not feel cheap. All screws are level The set up was good. Intonation is fine. Truss rod will need some adjusting once acclimated to my climate (cold, dry winters here) but no big deal. Playable out of the box, just needed slight tuning (all strings were 1/2 step down from Standard). Neck profile feels good, haven't measured fingerboard radius yet. Nice transparent burst finish. Nice colors Bad: Not much here. Mostly nit picky finishing blemishes. Particularly clear coat around the neck joint. You really have to go out of your way to see them. I tried to get photos but the blemishes don't show well in pics. If I owned a company and sold guitars at this price point I would've shipped it too. Pots taper quickly. You can get various tones, but it's fine adjustments to get there. They work and aren't scratchy, just not great. At $165 shipped, I don't know where else you can get locking tuners, bone nut and great fretwork in semi-hollow body guitar. It is not perfect, but it is a good guitar. And "for the money" it is a great guitar.

decent quality, well worth the price, thanks brighton shop

Steppenwolf and the Beatles have never sounded so good. A bit of fret sprout was easily fixed... I should have changed the strings, but I'm having too much fun with it out of the box.

What a great guitar plays awesome looks fantastic one great deal!!!

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).

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