2025 Ibanez AZ Standard AZ24S1F | Incredible tones and quality for $549 | In-depth Review & Demo

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This is the 2025 Ibanez AZ Standard AZ24S1F in Transparent Black Sunburst: the new, affordable $549/€549 workhorse many of us guitar players have been waiting for!

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Get this guitar at Thomann (EU):
Or at Sweetwater (USA):
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The China-made AZ Standard guitars – this version has two humbuckers, but there’s also an HSS version available – complete the Ibanez AZ family for me. Previously, you could get the sub $400 AZES as a budget entry level guitar… and then it was straight on to the $1000+ Premium guitars.

The AZ Standard sits at a price point that won’t offend anybody, and when you see the specs, the guitar starts to look like a no-brainer. The AZ24S1F has an alder body with a beautiful flame maple top (you can also get it in Transparent Turquoise Burst and Violin Sunburst).

The 25.5” scale neck is roasted maple, with a jatoba fingerboard and 24 jumbo stainless steel frets. You get Ibanez’s T106 vibrato bridge and locking tuners to keep things stable.

For the tones, you get a pair of Ibanez Modern Custom humbuckers. Thanks to the dyna-MIX10 switching system with Alter Switch, though, you get ten different pickup switching combinations, from full-fat humbucking tones to biting single coil sounds, and Ibanez’s Power Tap function.

Being an Ibanez, you can expect a top level fit and finish too, so this looks like an awful lot of guitar for the money. So, just how good is the AZ Standard? Is it set to become the next go-to Super Strat for under $1000?

That’s what we’re about to find out! In the video, I put the guitar through its paces in as many different musical styles as I can, from country, folk and indie, to pop, rock, punk, metal, and more – let’s see how it handles it! Let me know your thoughts on the AZ Standard in the comments.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the video where @EytschPi42 and I compare the AZ Standard to the AZES, Premium and Prestige models:

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:20 Introduction to the AZ Standard
01:24 Specs and info
02:21 dyna-MIX10 switching system/Alter Switch explanation
05:22 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
06:09 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
06:54 Droning grunge chords
07:13 Country tones
07:31 Funk rhythms
07:44 Poppy barre chords
08:16 Strummed folk pop chords
08:34 Smooth arpeggios
08:53 Ringing open indie pop chords
09:06 Art pop chords
09:18 Folk pop chords
09:37 Tone control test

Light and Medium Overdrive Sounds
10:35 Droning alt rock octaves
10:56 Garage rock riff
11:12 Southern rock arpeggios
11:32 Upbeat indie barre chords
11:56 Volume control roll off test
12:16 Fat indie rock rhythm chords
12:46 Choppy barre chords
13:03 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
13:16 Indie rock octaves
13:46 Classic rock riff
13:59 Quacky rock riff
14:08 Driving rock riff
14:22 AC/DC inspired riff
14:40 Airbourne inspired rock riff
14:51 Hendrix inspired riff
15:10 Groovy rock riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
15:37 80s rock riff
15:59 Glam rock riff
16:19 ZZ Top inspired riff
16:30 Hard rock riff
16:47 Van Halen inspired riff
17:08 Single note melodic rock riff
17:28 Foo Fighters inspired modern rock riff
17:46 Alternative rock tones
18:24 Punk rock sounds
19:30 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
19:46 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D)
20:11 Rage Against The Machine inspired riff (Drop D)
20:27 Thrash riff

Heavy Distortion Sounds (all in Drop D)
20:37 Metal chugging riff
20:55 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
21:07 Hardcore punk breakdown
21:22 Rammstein inspired industrial metal riff
21:35 Chug test
21:56 Hardcore punk riff

22:08 My thoughts
22:55 First impressions, looks, price
23:29 Weight
23:53 Build quality and hardware
24:55 Playability and neck
25:31 Sounds and pickups
28:35 What other similar guitars are out there?
30:59 My conclusions on the AZ Standard and why you should buy it

My setup was as follows: I ran the guitar into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head, also using my Greer Lightspeed and Revv G3 pedals for overdrive and heavy distortion sounds. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done.

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Get all this gear at Thomann:
Get all this gear at Sweetwater:
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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#Ibanez #IbanezAZ #AZStandard #IbanezAZStandard #RichWordsMusic

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