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Looking to get a King V, would like comments on my options and suggestions

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  • Looking to get a King V, would like comments on my options and suggestions

    Hi, (relatively) long time lurker here, but I've never needed to post something before. I've been eyeing the King V for a couple of years now, but the market in Australia is pretty limited, and when decent options do come up its never when I had the fund or its in the other side of the country. Now that I have a bit of money saved up I'd like to finally get a nice import model (don't think I can justify dropping 4k on a US model at this point in time). I'd like to avoid Floyds if possible, I don't want to pay an extra 200-300 for something I don't use and is going to make maintaining the thing a pain.
    • JS32T and upgrade the hardware
      I got a pretty cheap JS32T Warrior a couple of months back because of the thread about them on here a year or two back, and I liked the neck. This is probably the easiest option since the local music stores can just order one from Fender when they resume production, but quality control might be a problem. If they already have the guitar in the shop I can check for bad fret jobs/etc.... before buying, but stores in my area don't have a return policy, if its a lemon its another 200-250 on top to fix it up at a luthier.
    • Previous-gen KVXT
      The only store that still carry these in the country as far as I know is in another city, but they do offer free shipping, and/or just fly there when COVID regulation lax a little bit. Anyone has any experience with these Indonesian model, and is it worth twice the cost of the JS? For the price difference between the two I can get a set of JB/59 (or just the JB since I don't really use neck pickups) and upgrade the tuners + bridge to Schallers.
    • Importing a Jackson Stars/Grover Jackson from Yahoo Auction Japan through Buyee or Jauce, or Ishibashi
      No hard tail option here as far as I can see, but I can't find anything about a lot of models. Grover Jackson-branded KV-120 is something that pops up fairly often, but I can't find anything about it other than one seller's description. KV.D/E-155 is another that pops up fairly often, but that one is on a 90s Japan catalogue. These seems like the best option on paper, but the shipping cost estimation isn't very helpful for oversized product. There's a slightly damaged KV-120 on Yahoo right now starting at 10k yen that I'm tempted to bid on, but its going to be painful if the shipping ends up being 2-3 times the cost of the guitar. If anyone has experience ordering a guitar using a shipping forwarder I'd like to know about your experience. There's also a KV-120 on Ishibashi's webshop for 60k yen, with shipping it'd be right at my budget, but the KV.D/E-155 is only around 40-50k yen with EMG 81/85 instead of the SD Distortion, but otherwise there's not enough information on either for me to compare.
    Thanks for reading

  • #2
    I just want to say that you will easily earn how to set up floyd by watching the floyd setup tutorial on Youtube by ESP guitars and you will love it much more than hard tails.

    JS, skip in my opinion. Don't even think about it.
    KVXT and KVT Pro indonesia/india are quite common. Build quality is still a problem for both
    Japan KV5 KV4 (or KV3) Beautiful guitars. I have one. Can't find a flaw. Rosewood keyboard though. If you find one, buy it. KV4, KE5, SL/SLS, RR5 are great, and they come with original SDs or EMGs.
    Japan market guitars: as you said, the shipping and customs (especially in pandemic environment) is problematic. I've heard Ishibashi is reliable. You just need to watch their website for new guitars.

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    • #3
      Its not a setup issue, I don't use it in the first place in my playing, I don't like how it feels palm muting, and having to keep a second guitar around for a different tuning is a pain (though that in itself is an excuse to buy a new guitar). But I've pretty much settled on importing and dealing with the FR, since there's practically no MIJ Jackson around on eBay/etc..., and when there's one its usually a Dinky or a Rhoads. I did some research and found the info on the mid-90s Grover Jackson line on one of the Japanese catalogue, which makes it easier to identify listing with no model names.

      Most listing currently are for the mid-upper Delight line, which retailed at 120k yen (150k for EMG version), putting it between the Professional Pro and XL of the early 90s import, and around the 50k mark. Ishibashi has one for 60k, but with them you don't have to pay Japanese tax, handling or shipping to a forwarder so its actually a bit cheaper. But I've seen a one or two TOTL Impression series (Pro equivalent) on other Japanese website going as low as 30-35k yen.

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