Jackson JS22 Dinky BLK AH

If you want a cheap but good electric guitar for your metal needs, this is one of the best options I have come across. The guitar itself feels, plays and sounds great, tried it through a BOSS KATANA 50, a Marshall VS230 and with Neural DSP via an interface. All of the above sounded really good and I was satisfied with the result.

The only complaint I could have, and that's nitpicky on my end, I'll admit, is that the neck was preeeeetty dry went the package arrived. Nothing a good oil-rub and a string change couldn't fix though!

I play mostly rock/metal and I purchased this guitar with the purpose of playing it mainly at home as a practice guitar. I would feel comfortable using this guitar for gigging as its very solid and sounds great. It has exceeded my expectations and is great value for money. It comes fairly well set up out of the box. The neck is very fast and the fretboard looks great with the sharkfin inlays. The stock pickups are great for the style of music I play and have lots of definition when playing heavily distorted metal riffs. I had been worried about sustain and tone when i purchased this guitar as it is quite small and light, but I couldn't have been more wrong! Amazing sustain! This guitar actually sounds and feels better than some more expensive ones that I own. In a nutshell, I believe this is probably the best rock/metal guitar that can be purchased in this price range. If I could change anything on the guitar, I would probably swap out the machine heads for locking ones as when using the trem heavily, the guitar goes out of tune easily enough. Other than that, this guitar is perfect.

I bought this guitar recently because I wanted a metal guitar to play with my band. Plus, Jackson is cool and trustworthy in my opinion. It is my first guitar so except a slight bias.

Pros:
- Came decently set up, action and everything was ok
- Pickups are good and well performing for distortion needs
- Tremolo feels nice and works well
- The nut, although plastic, hasn't caused me any problems so far. I've read some not-very-great reviews about it but I haven't had any serious issues
- The neck feels nice, no rough spots or anything like that

Cons:
- Tuners work, but they are not great. My strings will always be slightly uptuned (8-15 cents), but they do for sure do their job for their price, even dive bombs with the tremolo do not cause serious tuning inconsistencies. Long-term, I believe that they should be replaced with locking ones.
- Due to the finish, it can get dirty easily, nothing that can't be quickly cleaned though

Overall, it is a guitar surely worth buying for a first guitar if you look for something metal that is of good performance and quality for its money that won't eat up your entire budget. By upgrading the tuners (maybe the nut as well?) and setting this guitar up well, you will be rocking for a long long time!