Review: Ibanez Prestige S5521Q

The S-series originated back in the 1980s when Ibanez was struggling to establish itself on the world market with their own original creations and traditions. Years later, the S series has been established as one of the popular  guitars in the world.  The S5521Q is the pinnacle of what the Ibanez Prestige J.Craft Craftsmen can do.  Our Ibanez Prestige S5521Q featured a color called the “Wild Pilsner Burst” and had one of the nicest Quilted Maple tops I have seen in a LONG time!  It features a solid mahogany body with the quilted maple top, bolt-on neck joint and white binding.  The Bridge is a proprietary Gibraltar bridge with gold plating and string-through-body construction. Stock pickups are the usual Ibanez V-Series, which we replaced with DiMarzio D-Activators.  It’s no secret that these pickups, whilst decent, are the weakest link in most people’s opinions of these guitars. Master volume, master tone and a five-position blade switch complete the controls unit. Five-piece neck is made of maple and walnut and is fit with a standard Wizard contour in the back, nice and thin – the classic Ibanez profile.  24 well-manicured frets are set into the Rosewood fingerboard.  Not to mention, the Ibanez Prestige S5521Q looks, like this:

Playability is the main purpose to buy an S-Series, and while the S5521Q Prestige looks and sounds incredible, it’s thin-bodied design is simply one of the most comfortable and classic designs of all time.  How Ibanez manages to get such a full-bodied tone out of such a thin body will always be beyond my imagination.  The access allowed is incredible and, paired with the fast Wizard neck, will allow for the fastest runs by even the most demanding of shredders.  Again, we do recommend swapping the V-series pickups, as they do not do this instrument justice.

This instrument is equally at home being the metal guitar icon and the blues/pop guitar.  It’s hard to imagine this instrument not doing anything well, despite it’s obviously metal heritage.

Overall, the Ibanez Prestige S5521Q is quite the catch.  Despite the weak pickups, the overall fit and finish of the instrument is absolutely stellar.  Playability, and beauty make the S-Series a serious contender, worthy of even the most demanding of shredder.

If you’d like to order an Ibanez Prestige, you can now order through our online store because we are fully authorized Ibanez dealers.  To view our current Ibanez inventory click here.  We can also special order any models.