I have a Korean made Agile AL-3000 that was $450 (if memory serves), and the quality of that guitar is phenomenal, which is a similar statement from many other owners of Agile guitars.

I am on my second Korean made $1300 JTV-89, and the quality is again crap. I understand that the electronics add to the cost of the Variax guitars, but are we to believe that the electronics are so costly that there isn't even enough left of that $1300-1500 to make us a guitar that matches the build quality of a $450 traditional guitar?

My first JTV-89 had a nice neck, and without any setup was mostly buzz free, but the 1/4" jack required a ridiculous amount of force to plug into, and the piezo pickups were bad (when strummed hard they would give off a sound clipping kind of popping noise). Now I get my replacement JTV-89 and the neck is crap, and there is buzzing all over the place. One can say that I just need to set it up, but I am of the opinion that it shouldn't be in that bad of need when I get it. Also, this guitar has another model selector where the tuning selector is supposed to be. The piezos sound good at least.

From what I have heard of the modelling, I really like the sounds these guitars can produce, but are they really worth that kind of money? If I manage to get one that is good from the start, do I have to worry that it is going to fall a part in a few months? If I decide to do another exchange, are there so many bad ones that I am going to be lucky to get a good one, or am I just unlucky to have gotten the two bad guitars?

Frustrating this is.