Ibanez AZES40: The $300 Guitar an Ibanez Signature Artist Put Up Against $15,000

Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Nita Strauss, and Tim Henson have zero documented connection to the guitar actually in question. The AZES40 is a $299 beginner instrument with a tremolo bridge, and none of these five shredders has ever been photographed near one.

The guitar’s real story belongs to Bernth, the Austrian guitarist and YouTube phenomenon with over a million subscribers, who deliberately picked up an AZES40 for one of his signature comparison videos: “$300 vs $15,000 Guitar!” Bernth isn’t some random content creator reaching for a prop — he’s an Ibanez-endorsing artist with his own signature model in the works, a former touring member of the extreme metal band Belphegor, and a guitarist who’s headlined a 120,000-person Austrian festival. When a player with that resume deliberately reaches for the AZES40 to make a point about value, it’s worth paying attention to.

A Shared Design Story, A Different Pickup Configuration

Same Fujita DNA, Different Layout

The AZES40 launched alongside its hardtail sibling, the AZES31, in October 2021, and shares that guitar’s full design story: both were built in direct collaboration with Tomo Fujita, the Berklee College of Music professor who mentored a young John Mayer, Soulive’s Eric Krasno, and Lettuce’s Adam Smirnoff. That collaboration’s full backstory — Fujita’s own career, his teaching philosophy, and how the AZ Essentials line came to exist — is covered in depth in the AZES31 article; the short version is that Ibanez handed the entire beginner-guitar brief to a working educator rather than a marketing team, and the AZES40 is the second half of what came out of it.

HSS Instead of SSS: What Actually Changes

Where the AZES31 keeps things simple with three single-coils and a fixed bridge, the AZES40 swaps in an Accord humbucker at the bridge position, keeping Essentials single-coils at the neck and middle, and adds a T106 tremolo. It’s a genuinely different guitar rather than a simple colorway variant — the humbucker gives it meaningfully more push for overdriven and distorted tones, and the tremolo opens up vibrato and dive-bomb techniques the hardtail AZES31 simply can’t do. Guitar.com’s review of the model called it an entry-level instrument with semi-pro aspirations, noting that with a pickup upgrade it could comfortably venture into genuinely professional territory.

Anatomy of the AZES40

Body and Neck

The AZES40 shares its poplar body and bolt-on maple neck with the AZES31, in the same AZES C profile — a slim, comfortable shape at roughly 20.5mm at the first fret and 22.5mm at the twelfth. The jatoba fretboard carries white dot inlays and side dots, sitting on a 250mm (9.84-inch) radius that splits the difference between a vintage Fender curve and a flatter modern board. The 25-inch scale length, a half-inch shorter than standard, remains aimed at making the guitar approachable for younger or smaller-handed players without feeling undersized once they’ve grown into it. The nut measures a narrow 42mm, cut from plastic rather than bone on this model.

Electronics

Two Essentials single-coils handle the neck and middle positions, with an Accord humbucker at the bridge rounding out the HSS layout — all passive, ceramic-magnet designs built specifically for this line. Guitar.com’s technical measurement put the bridge humbucker’s DC resistance at 6.6 ohms, describing it as not far from vintage output territory, giving beginners a forgiving amount of push for sustaining fretted notes without tipping into modern hot-output aggression. That’s a deliberate design choice rather than a cost-cutting one — a hotter, more compressed humbucker would mask the kind of dynamic picking control beginners are still developing, while a vintage-leaning output rewards touch sensitivity from the start. The dyna-MIX9 switching system — one combination richer than the AZES31’s dyna-MIX8, thanks to the added tonal possibilities the humbucker unlocks — pairs a five-way blade switch with a two-way Alter mini-toggle for nine total tonal combinations, including a series-wired mode that taps the neck and middle single-coils together to approximate a second humbucker voice. In practice, that means a genuinely wide tonal range from a guitar with only three physical pickups and two switches — enough range that reviewers note many owners stay satisfied with the AZES40 rather than immediately shopping for a second, different-sounding guitar.

Bridge and Hardware

The T106 tremolo bridge uses newly developed comfort-round steel saddles, offering a wider range of height adjustment and smoother action under the picking hand than typical budget-tier bridges. It’s a non-locking, six-saddle vibrato system — genuinely functional for expressive dips and light dive-bombs, though multiple owners note the trem arm itself has some wobble out of the box, and that tuning stability, while reliable under normal play, can drift somewhat under heavier tremolo abuse without a nut or saddle upgrade. Chrome die-cast tuning machines and the same all-access neck joint and mono-unit output jack found on the AZES31 round out the build.

Who Actually Played It — Bernth’s Viral Comparison

Tone Recipes for the AZES40

The AZES40 Against Its Family and Its Competition

Against its own sibling, the choice between the AZES31 and the AZES40 comes down almost entirely to whether a beginner wants a tremolo and a hotter bridge tone (AZES40) or a simpler, more vintage-leaning hardtail SSS setup (AZES31) — both share the same neck, body, and overall build quality. Stepping up in the AZ family, the AZ2204 and AZ2402 Prestige carry the same design lineage into genuinely professional territory with Seymour Duncan electronics and Japanese construction. Against direct budget competitors, owner comparisons consistently rank the AZES40 above a Squier Stratocaster and a Yamaha Pacifica in side-by-side testing, though some owners prefer rival budget guitars like the Jet JS-400 for out-of-the-box feel — a reminder that even within the beginner tier, personal preference plays a real role and it’s worth testing more than one option where possible.

Buying Guide

• Know your configuration before you shop. The AZES40 (HSS, tremolo) and AZES31 (SSS, hardtail) share a name family but deliver meaningfully different playing experiences — don’t assume interchangeability.
• Expect to tighten up the trem eventually. Owner reports consistently flag some wobble in the stock tremolo arm and note that a nut or saddle upgrade — a GraphTech TUSQ nut is a commonly recommended step — improves tuning stability under heavier vibrato use.
• Watch for regional colorway differences. The AZES40 has shipped in Black, Purist Blue, Mint Green, and Tungsten depending on market and year — check current availability before settling on a specific finish.
• It’s a genuinely viable project-guitar platform. Multiple owners have picked up used AZES40s well under retail specifically to use as a modification platform, reporting strong results from pickup and hardware upgrades on top of the already-solid neck and body.
• Consider the AZES31 first if you don’t need a tremolo. Players who know they won’t use vibrato techniques regularly may find the AZES31’s simpler hardtail bridge one less thing to maintain, without losing much in the way of overall build quality.

Living With One: Ownership Notes

Owner sentiment on the AZES40 is strongly positive, with particular praise for how the guitar compares to instruments costing considerably more — one detailed review specifically noted its playability and build quality rival guitars five times its price. The most common complaint, consistent with its sibling, is the missing gig bag; beyond that, owner criticism centers mainly on the tremolo arm’s initial wobble and the neck single-coil’s tendency to sound slightly muddy under heavier overdrive. Neither issue seems to meaningfully dampen enthusiasm — one long-time player with over fifty years of experience specifically noted plans to use an upgraded AZES40 as an active gigging guitar, a genuinely unusual vote of confidence for a beginner-branded instrument from someone with the most experience to know better.

Fretboard maintenance comes up more often in AZES40 owner discussion than with many budget guitars, simply because the jatoba board can arrive looking noticeably pale and dry from the factory — a quick treatment with lemon oil or a similar conditioner brings out a richer color and improves the board’s feel within minutes, and most reviewers treat it as a five-minute first step rather than a flaw. Some owners have also reported light fret oxidation on guitars that sat in storage before purchase, similarly resolved with basic steel wool and the same lemon oil treatment. None of it points to a guitar that needs professional attention out of the box — just the kind of light first-day setup ritual most new owners enjoy anyway.

The AZES Family Tree — and Closing This Chapter

Beyond the standard black, blue, green, and Tungsten finishes, Ibanez also released the AZES40B with a black pickguard and the AZES40L for left-handed players — modest variations on the same core instrument rather than meaningfully different guitars. Together with the AZES31, the AZES40 completes the entire AZ Essentials line as it currently stands — just two models, both born from the same Fujita collaboration, sitting at the accessible base of a much larger AZ family tree that stretches up through the AZ2204 and AZ2402 Prestige covered earlier in this run, and further still toward artist-driven instruments like Tim Henson’s THBB10.

Frequently Asked Questions