IYV IJZ-500 NA Jazz Solid- Hollow Body Electric Guitar, Natural

IYV guitars are very attractive, well-built, feel good, sound good and the value is phenomenal. This IYV IJZ-500 NA is fantastic, and it is my 4th IYV guitar. When I was a teenager, I got a Gibson ES-175D from a music liquidation sale for only $375. That guitar got lost in a move later in life and I’ve always missed it dearly. While this IYV IJZ NA is not that guitar, it does bring back great visceral memories of the feel of that big, sweet jazz classic guitar. I feel lucky to have easy and inexpensive access to IYV’s unique and fun guitars. With modern automated production processes, their quality is excellent. This won’t be my last IYV guitar, but I’m definitely going to pace myself and enjoy the ones I already have before I start thinking about buying my next one.

I wanted to give this five stars. What I received plays well enough, sounds great, and I’m satisfied with the quality for the price I paid. Though it does have a lot of small imperfections. I’ll start with the pros, which are mostly aesthetic: - The guitar pictured in the listing has a silver tailpiece and pickups, which looks fine, though not as pleasing against the body color as gold-tone hardware would be. So I had a really good first impression when I opened the box and saw that both the tailpiece and pickups were gold. - The inlays are absolutely gorgeous. Especially the abalone inside mother of pearl inlays on the neck. - It looks like someone did a basic setup before shipping it. The strings were so low, in fact, that the 6th string buzzed from the 5th fret up. The frets themselves were fine, the bridge had just been taken down too low. But the truss rod didn’t need adjusting, and I count that as a pro because it amounted to less time and work than I normally have to put into setting up a new guitar. - The sound is actually quite nice, despite the cheap pickups. But I’m giving it four stars instead of five because: - There were some blemishes in the finish. They aren’t visible from a distance, you really have to look closely to find them. And they’re hard to photograph with a cellphone camera. But there are several, ranging from small bumps that weren’t sanded out or indentations that weren’t filled to some scratches around the bridge pickup. - The pickups aren’t terrible, but most amateurs could have done a better job installing them. I took out the bridge pickup to get a better look inside, and as I was unscrewing it, one of the screws wouldn’t lift. It turned, but I had to lever it out because the wood was stripped around it, so it was more like a loose nail than a screw. This was sold as a new instrument and not a warehouse return, so my best guess is that the pickup didn’t pass the QC process at the factory and someone did a rush job replacing it. Whatever the cause, it’s going to take about half a day and some wood filler on my end to correct. I put a set of flatwounds on it, which took about a day to settle. I’ve played it for a few days now, and it stays in tune. The tuners, by the way, aren’t great, but they work well enough, I don’t see a need to replace them any time soon. The bottom line is, if the instrument needed more than a day’s worth of work to setup or repair, or if it didn’t stay in tune, I’d send it back. But it does the job I bought it for, and it’s quite fetching, so I’m keeping this one. I bought this because I’ve purchased two IYV guitars before that were easily five-star instruments for the price I paid. I’ve found the brand in general to produce really good platforms for modding; the bodies and necks are high quality, while the electronics are easily replaceable with a bit of patience and some soldering skills.

I bought the IYV IJZ-500 because it looked incredible and cost less brand-new on Amazon than used on eBay. That’s usually a sign of cult status or pending scarcity—or maybe just a really good deal. This is my seventh IYV guitar. Yes, seventh. I’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years, which is just enough time to get very good at buying them and stay reliably mediocre at playing them. I’m the kind of guy who owns a wall of guitars and plays the same songs on all of them with deep conviction. The IJZ-500 is a big, beautiful jazz box. Glossy, elegant, and absolutely fun to hold. If you like guitars that look like they cost more than your first car, this one fits the bill. It’s built for jazz tones, and it delivers—smooth, warm, and mellow. Played through a Spark 2 and flat studio headphones, it sounded great. The pickups are a little soft, which might annoy pros, but I consider it a feature: they mask my sloppy playing like Instagram filters for bad tone. Mine arrived with no sharp frets, no issues with the finish, and a real bone nut (nice touch). The tuners are budget-grade, sure—but they work. I’ll upgrade them eventually, mostly to pretend I know what I’m doing. Compared to my “real” guitars (the expensive, pro-tier ones I bring out to impress absolutely no one), this holds its own just fine for home use. Honestly, I sound about the same on a $1,500 guitar as I do on this—like a guy who long ago hit his talent ceiling but loves to be discerning about different guitar tones and feels. The best part? IYV guitars are fun. They make me want to pick them up and play, which is pretty much the whole point when you’re not paying the bills with your playing. Also, my wife doesn’t really raise a serious eyebrow when one shows up on the doorstep. That matters. Would I take it on stage at a jazz club? I’d have to suddenly became good to give you that piece of advice. But for living-room sessions, headphone jams, or pretending to be a guitar hero in my study, it’s perfect.

So when I first seen this guitar, I was extremely excited.It is an amazing guitar.I got it.I put new strings on it because I do that with every guitar that I get.I put sevens on it's just my style.One of the issues that i've had with it is the bag, the bag does not fit it that came with it.It doesn't completely go around it and you can't zip it up with it in it.Because it doesn't go around it all the way.But the guitar itself, i'm in love with it.I just wish the bag would be able to fit it.But it's like it's too small. So as you can see, it's not zipping up.It's a beautiful bag, though, just not big enough for this guitar.But the guitar is awesome

Experienced guitarist over 20 years here. I took the chance purchasing this guitar. Looks alone and size is absolutely stunning. It arrived quickly. That’s when the nightmare started. - It sounds terrible, little to no resonance & it sounds very thin unplugged and plugged in. - Fret Buzz all over the place, this guitar comes needing a set up up right away. - cheap quality wooden bridge, (I included a photo, you can upgrade it to a tune o matic, to help increase sustain) ultimately I still returned this guitar. - electronics sound thin, issues - quality control issues like binding didn’t match up and there was wood shavings coming out of the sound hole upon closer inspection I returned this guitar because of all these issues. Would of love to keep it for looks alone, but for $247-279 I know I can find a much better quality used Hollow body that is more reliable I don’t think it’s a guitar worth modding. I had a new tune o matic bridge, pickups and locking tuners ready to install…. I just down think it’s worth it.

My unit came through with a slightly small missing piece of veneer on the side that was feathered in and is almost invisible. Other than that, fit and finish is about perfect. Like others said, I think the top is not photoflame. Slight movement of the bridge brought intonation in dead on, lowered the bridge to a good action, and away I went. I waited almost three days to plug it up. I was NOT disappointed. This thing is a semi-hollow in some ways, with the block that runs through the middle glued to the top, from neck to bottom. So technically, this is NOT a hollow body acoustic. It is not meant to be, and THOSE WHO THINK THEY ARE GETTING TWO GUITARS IN ONE, AN ACOUSTIC AND A ELECTRIC ACOUSTIC, THINK AGAIN. This is definitely a electric semi-hollow, albeit a HUGE one, and it puts out HUGE sounds. First time I plugged it up, I went wireless, clean through my pedal board, to my Peavey Classic 50. WOW, what a sound. The lows are bottom low, and the highs ring out like magic. It just rocks the house. I LOVE THIS GUITAR... Just to be clear, I am a luthier in SE Tennessee that sees maybe 100 guitars a year in my shop, for all kinds of repairs, restorations, and setups. This unit may need a bit of a setup, but minor, and to be honest, I think a string change will be all this needs. Kudos to IYV for putting out a LOUD AND PROUD semi-hollow dreadnought. Caveats: This thing is HUGE. By far the biggest guitar I own, and I own about 35, since I collect off-brand guitars as a hobby to my business. This thing makes my Xaviere Tonewood Series look small. The pickups, Destiny Wound, are just fine. They send out the lows you might want, and the highs are there when you want them. I am just fine with them, and have no plans on changing them. It could use a bone nut, and I may put one on. The turners are serviceable, better are out there. But at this price point, I plan on staying with them. Not a big fan of the wooden bridge, but it works. Thought about putting on a Tune-a-matic, but thought why? It works. No whammy, so no need. Overall, this is a genuine steal, and if you are looking for a big dreadnought for reasonable price, I dare you to find one that is this cheap, for this much guitar. I know, I look every night, and this stood out above all the rest. Highly recommended, not for beginners, but for players of jazz, blues, rockabilly, bluegrass.

Hello This was not ok out of the box as others stated. I have 52 years of playing and set up experience. If you are an inexperienced player/ tech, this probably isn't the guitar for you. That being said, for the price, if you are able to do a custom setup, you will be ok. The fit finish was really nice for this price point. There were several high frets that needed filed and recrowned. All of the remaining frets needed polished, they were all rough. The tuners were crap, not even usable. The wood bridge was useless, and way out of intonation. I replaced it with a metal Gotoh. The pickups were ok, but needing replacing. I replaced them with a set of p90s I had. The truss rod needed tweaked. Strings of course, were crap. After all that, it's a really nice jazz box now. Again, for the initial price, it's a good start point.

This guitar arrived in bad shape. The truss rod had been torqued to its limit, making a back bow in the neck that I’m surprised didn’t cause breakage during shipment. It took a lot of adjustment to get the low frets to create tone, but once I got it there the tones sounded nice. The tone and volume pots are horrible, and only work somewhere between 6 and 10, complete dead zone on each pot below those numbers. The neck pickup volume pot is basically a toggle switch, it only works between 9 and 10. There is damage to the neck, I assume from someone smacking it with a tool, or maybe it was misgauged somewhere in their process. The truss rod cover was so crooked it looked ridiculous, and the screw had been stripped it had been tightened down so aggressively. I have got the guitar playable now, but it’s going to need more work to make it play well. The action is set very high, it will take some time to get it lowered because there are so many high frets. There are pick marks all over the front of the guitar, which will need to be covered as well, because they really stand out. The tuning pegs are no better than the rest of it, they feel loose and cheap, barely able to hold the guitar in tune. The wood bridge is just a wood bridge, and I haven’t adjusted the height yet, so I don’t know what to expect from the hardware on that. If it’s anything like the rest of the hardware on the guitar, I expect I’ll need a replacement bridge. The tailpiece seems to work, I’ll give it that. So, the hardware they put on this guitar is basically just like demo hardware. It allows me to balance out the guitar and get it set up. I’m going to have to do a lot of part replacements, so I wouldn’t recommend this guitar to a beginner. If you already play, and are looking at this as a mod platform, it’s worth the money. The bones of the guitar are all there and it’s a beast. I won’t be able to tell for some time if the wood was dry enough to build a guitar out of it, but the unvarnished interior, from what I can see through the f-holes, looks promising (though very sloppy, it looks like they cleaned the white paint off their brushes on the panels of the guitar that wouldn’t be a Class A surface. All in all, despite all the terrible hardware and QA problems, I’m excited to get the toy hardware off it and try some real components. I have a pair of Pearly Gates ready for it, I just need to pick up a decent harness and some good pots. If you enjoy experimentation and plan on making this guitar your own custom instrument, if that’s what you call fun, this is a great box. - After fixing some bad solder at the switch in this guitar, I got both pickups working normally. The pickups are not bad, I actually like them. I think the only thing I might do now to make the guitar better is replace the tailpiece. I feel like notes are ringing kind of dead on that and I think it might be the material. I like the guitar a lot more after playing it more. It takes some getting used to because its awkward if you've been playing solid bodies to switch to a jumbo body like this. The more time I put into playing it though, the more I like the design. It's not an L5 but it's a pretty cool approximation of one for the money. You just have to be ready to solve some problems. I don't have any idea how likely problems might be, I guess we have to wait for more reviews to find out.