Jackson SDX: Disappointing experience

chrishill901

I watched a lot of favourable reviews and read the spec from the Jackson website which really sold me on the guitar. The overview read as follows:

The Adrian Smith SDX features a basswood body, bolt-on maple neck, compound-radius rosewood or maple fingerboard, HSS configuration (high-output Jackson bridge pickup, noiseless middle and neck single-coil pickups), white pickguard (rosewood fingerboard model) or black pickguard (maple fingerboard model), five-way blade selector switch, Jackson tuners, Floyd Rose® Special tremolo system and black hardware.

On paper the guitar was too good to be true; noiseless single coils and a Floyd Rose. This, combined with favourable reviews on how it played had me sold. I have no local Jackson dealers so I bought it online.

It is certainly a looker, and after a decent set up it plays as well as it looks. It is quite a different guitar for me; I tend to favour big slabs of mahogany with baseball bats for necks, but after a bit of adjustment I am certainly getting on with the lighter, faster Jackson! When I eventually got chance I plugged it into my practice set-up at home; an iPad mini with Positive Grid Bias connected via an iRig, the signal was very noisy, more so on the neck and middle pickup. I put this down to using the very noisy iRig and being sat in front of my computer. Fast forward to next band practice and I’m getting excited to play the Jackson cranked through my Marshall 2554 Jubilee. Jaws hit the floor when I got it out of the bag and I was pleased to finally test it properly. Upon testing it however, I discovered that the neck and middle ‘noiseless’ pickups were significantly noisier than the bridge humbucker. So much so I wondered if there was a grounding issue or a mistake at the factory and I had received ordinary pickups? I emailed Jackson, and to their credit their response was very swift. I asked why it sounded as though my Jackson SDX had ordinary, rather than noiseless single coils, and the response I received was:

‘Our website states that the pickups in this model are just Jackson Single Coil pickups in the specs and not Noiseless, however, I do see in the description that they listed the same description as the US model which does have Noiseless pickups. The US version has Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups from factory but the SDX does not.’

I had to respond to this for two reasons. Firstly, the description listed was not even remotely close to the US model; this was a cop-out excuse, and secondly I felt Jackson did not quite understand the severity and importance of their glaring error:

chrishill901

I appreciate that mistakes like this happen and it is difficult to spot them all, but it is not simply a case of the description being copied. I trust that this will be rectified for future potential customers as I cannot be the only person for whom the main selling point was the claim of noiseless pickups.

The US model overview states that:

The Adrian Smith San Dimas® DK features an alder body, bolt-on quartersawn maple neck, compound radius ebony or maple fingerboard, DiMarzio® Super Distortion™ bridge pickup with Fender® SCN™ middle and neck single coil pickups in an HSS configuration, white or black pickguard, Floyd Rose® tremolo system, and black hardware.

This is drastically different to the overview on your website for the SDX:

The Adrian Smith SDX features a basswood body, bolt-on maple neck, compound-radius

rosewood or maple fingerboard, HSS configuration (high-output Jackson bridge pickup, noiseless middle and neck single-coil pickups), white pickguard (rosewood fingerboard model) or black pickguard (maple fingerboard model), five-way blade selector switch, Jackson tuners, Floyd Rose® Special tremolo system and black hardware.

 

The descriptions here are not even remotely similar. Had the description for the US model been on the SDX page I would have noticed and picked up firstly that it was being called the ‘DK’ and not the SDX, and secondly that the pickups were branded. However in the description presented to me it claims to have Jackson branded, noiseless middle and neck single-coils. The rest of the specification for that guitar is correct, so it would be a fair assumption to think that the pickups were too as advertised.

I appreciate that this isn’t specifically your problem, and I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but I’m afraid that there is simply no way to misinterpret what has been advertised by yourselves. You have advertised to me a guitar with noiseless pickups, and I have been mis sold a guitar without noiseless pickups. Many of the retailers I looked at also state this claim (as a lot most likely copy and paste from your site) so this is a big issue that I’m surprised has gone unnoticed.

I appreciate that what I have received is otherwise the exact specification advertised, and it is a wonderful instrument to play and I am for the most part happy with it, but you must appreciate that as a busy gigging musician I purchased this guitar, specifically because of the advertised noiseless pickups…. I have bought it from a practicality point of view as a tool with the intention of it becoming my main gigging/touring guitar. I have always stayed away from single coil guitars because of this, and I looked at getting a similar single coil guitar and upgrading the pickups, but when I found this I purchased it because I believed, through fault of Jackson, that it fit my needs, and more importantly involved minimal hassle as it was correct to my needs off the peg. I will however have to purchase noiseless pickups for this, although it is too late for my next run of gigs and the noise is a headache I will have to work around.

chrishill901

I think the crux of the issue is this: I can hand-on-heart honestly say the main selling point for me was the noiseless pickups advertised on their site (this has since been changed). I had a number of options for guitars, and the main factor for me was noiseless pickups, along with a Floyd Rose. I was very close to purchasing an EVH wolfgang because it had similar specs; a basswood body, maple neck, Floyd Rose and noiseless pickups (through the form of humbuckers). I decided I wanted a more strat like single coil neck tone, but without the noise, and I had settled on choosing a HH guitar and simply installing a parallel switch to give me a pseudo single coil tone. My main options were:

 

EVH Wolfgang with push pull mod

PRS SE Custom 22 with push pull mod

Schecter Omen Extreme FR (no mods needed)

BC Rich Mockingbird ST (no mods needed)

 

There were many more really good quality instruments available to me, but when I found out about the Jackson SDX it ticked every box perfectly. It didn't do pseudo single coil sounds, it actually had single coils, and noiseless ones too! And herein lies my issue, and one i'm not sure the Jackson customer service representative, who ignored my response, understood. Because of their error, I chose to spend hundreds of pounds of my hard earned money on their guitar in the faith that it was as advertised. I am now left with an instrument which I genuinely believe, because it is not noiseless, is inferior to the instruments listed above for my purposes. I would be happier with one of the above guitars and now wish I had bought the EVH. I do not need or want the noise of a traditional single coil in my signal chain. I play rock music with quite a bit of gain. I have always used humbucker equipped guitars specifically to avoid the noise that comes with singles, and I am not properly equipped to deal with the significant noise it creates in a live situation. I can confidently say that if that guitar had been advertised correctly I would not have bought it.

 

I am also amazed that this issue has not been raised earlier. As far as I know, this guitar has been out since 2012, and im not the only one who believes it to have noiseless single coils; the majority of the reviews I watched claimed this too:

 

 

I refuse to believe that these people simply didn't notice the noise. And it is not just them. Google 'Jackson SDX Noiseless' and you will see that most people think and claim, from forums to reviews and shops alike, that the pickups are noiseless. I am wondering, perhaps, whether the spec has changed down the line? Notice in the following zZounds video, the guitar has truss rod adjustment available at the headstock, and a stripe down the back of the neck? Mine doesn't, therefore the spec has changed at some point down the line, I believe when production changed from India to Indonesia:

 

 

If this is the case then Jackson have changed the way they make this guitar without informing the consumer, and therefore I have been mis sold this product. What bothers me however, is that Jackson don't seem to care. My last email explaining why this is so important to me; that I am a gigging musician for whom the main selling point was the pickups, has been entirely ignored. I work hard as a musician on the local scene with a number of what for me are big gigs coming up; we have festival slots and decent venues lined up - just this Friday I will be playing in the premier music bar in our area which is always packed to the rafters and I will have to use something that is not fit for purpose as I do not have the time or money to rectify their mistake.

 

I'm not sure what I expected from Jackson - I don't want them to offer a refund as I love how the guitar plays, I don't expect them to send the pickups I should have had because apparently they don't exist, but I would like an acknowledgement of the severity of their mistake and a gesture or token of good will. If I was a famous player this issue would be sorted, but i'm not, i'm an ordinary player. It is the ordinary players however, who are the bread and butter for a guitar company like Jackson, and as our relationship stands at the moment I will never purchase from them again and will not recommend them. I want an effort on Jacksons behalf to repair this damaged relationship and make me trust them again. I wanted them to impress me with how they handled it, but they have failed on that front.

 

chrishill901

To put it all into perspective I will tell you of an experience with a different guitar company, who shall not be named so as to not drag them into this. They make great, affordable guitars, and I purchased one over two years ago. It was a wonderful instrument and although the finish never looked anything like the picture when it arrived I chose not to do anything about it because it was still pretty and it played wonderfully. Fast forward two years (to April when I was looking at the Jackson) and I get wind that some minor tweaks have been made to the design of the guitar I own as well as improvements to the finish. I got curious because one of my options would have been to have bought the same guitar, and kept the inferior looking one as the stage spare. I emailed the company to ask about what changes had been made and if the rumour of the finish QC improvements were true. The response was overwhelming. Firstly the rumours were true, and secondly, they said that if I send them my old one then they will send me a brand new one, despite my guitar being over a year out of warranty and heavily used. Further to that, I said I wasn't sure as I liked how mine played, so they said they'd send me the new one, let me choose and just send the one I didn't want back!

 

Now this is exceptional customer service and although I don't expect this from Jackson, it is a shining example of what CAN be done if the ethos of the company is geared towards its consumers and their positive experiences. My experience with Jackson has not been even remotely as positive and it saddens me; playing the guitar is a big part of my life, and buying a new instrument, whether it cost £400 or £4000 is an important purchase. My experience with Jackson and the SDX has tainted this.

Am I overreacting? Did you all think it had noiseless pickups?

StefB

Chris, sorry for not responding in the same kind of detail, but as it was an online purchase why didn't just return it under the Distance Selling Regulations if you were so disappointed?  Or had you missed the 7/14 day boat by the time you got to test it in anger?

Funnily enough, I've actually only today taken delivery of this exact same model in mint used condition.  It might take me a day or two to set it up (the strings were typically slackened off by the shop before despatch) but I'll report on my findings as soon as I can.

They can be had very inexpensively used, and my plan is to remove the stock pickups and replace them with a Seymour Duncan HSS set.  But I'll let you know how I find the stock pickups first - watch this space...

Moltisanti

i would have been amazed if it had anything other than generic pickups for that price.

My band mate has 2, they are nice guitars but need a pickup upgrade ASAP in my opinion

chrishill901

No need to apologise!

I missed the boat by the time I tested it but as ive said, I really like the guitar. As an instrument, electronics aside it is superb and i want to continue using it, I am just disappointed that the pickups are not as advertised.

Did the shop you bought it from advertise it as having noiseless pickups? Also, is it Indian or Indonesian?

StefB

I got it from Nevada for £199 and the pickups weren't advertised as being Noiseless.  I'd been on the lookout for a used model for a while and my understanding all along was that the (Fender SCN) Noiseless pickups were only fitted to the megabucks USA model.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381300785950?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

chrishill901

@Moltisanti - I was amazed, thats why I bought it!

All of the reviews stated they were noiseless... there was simply no chatter about them not being. Even this review says they are:

http://www.musicradar.com/reviews/guitars/jackson-adrian-smith-sdx-566277

Dave_Mc

Always very annoying when you buy something which is advertised as being wrong. I bought a couple of (cheapish, not audiophile ) ) hifis recently, and specifically looked up the manuals on the manufacturers' websites to make sure they'd do what I wanted. When I get them, I find the manual is wrong, after contacting the manufacturer (and in one case getting pretty condescending replies along the lines of "RTFM" until I pointed out that I had and that it appeared to be incorrect.)

MattFGBI

@chrishill901

I'll try and sort this out for you.  PM incoming.