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(More customer reviews)As a guitar player who grew up with 80's 'hair bands' and Heavy Metal, I was immediately intrigued by the design of these new Washburn V's when I first saw them advertised. The body ends up being somewhat of a cross between a classic (ie Gibson) V and the slimmed down Jackson Rhoads. For comparison, my Dean V fits nicely inside the Washburn gig bag, huge headstock and all.
The Washburn is thick like a Les Paul, yet light enough so that it's not a back-breaker. The neck is on the thin side and the fretboard has a flat radius allowing for even play along the entire surface. Mine came with the phenolic resin board that is smooth, hard, and fast.
The first thing I noticed when I received this guitar was that the finish is MUCH nicer than any of the pics that I've found online. It has a nice deep metallic look to it that's hard to capture.
The second thing that I noticed was that there was a HORRIBLE bow to the neck; as if the truss rod was completely loosened prior to shipping. I had to give the truss rod about 2 full turns in order to get it straightened out! I also found a high fret in the upper register that I had to file down to fix. These are NOT things I expect to have to do on a guitar that was supposedly 'set up' at the factory. For the price paid (Gold Box deal), I was willing to put up with a few inconveniences, though. To their credit, I found that the intonation was nearly perfect once I got the neck straightened out.
Opening up the control cavity revealed very tidy construction & quality components (full-sized alpha pots, etc). I also discovered that a coil split switch could be easily added to the Randall pickups, so I installed a push-pull tone knob with an orange-drop cap.
Regarding the sound of the guitar, it's loud and aggressive and sounds great on it's own. However, I found that the natural 'scooped' EQ of the pickups leads to it getting a little lost in a live mix (nothing a little re-EQing can't take care of, though).
All in all, the Washburn WV40 is a great guitar; easily as nice or better than ANYTHING that I've played in it's 'regular' price range.
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