2025 Ibanez AZ Standard AZ22S1F | Just how good is this $549 HSS workhorse? IN-DEPTH Review & Demo

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This is the 2025 Ibanez AZ Standard AZ22S1F in Transparent Turquoise Burst: the new, affordable $549/€549 HSS 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 model has the classic HSS pickup configuration, but there’s also a version available with two humbuckers – complete the Ibanez AZ family for me. Previously, you started out with the sub $400 AZES as a budget entry level guitar… and then it was straight on to the $1000+ Premium models.

The AZ Standard sits at a price point that won’t offend anybody, and when you see the specs, the guitar starts to look even more attractive. The AZ22S1F has an alder body with a beautiful flame maple top (you can also get it in Transparent Black Sunburst).

The 25.5” scale neck is roasted maple, with a jatoba fingerboard and 22 jumbo stainless steel frets. You get Ibanez’s T106 vibrato bridge and locking tuners to keep things stable.

For the sounds, you get an HSS set of Ibanez Classic Custom pickups. Thanks to the dyna-MIX9 switching system with Alter Switch, though, you get nine different pickup switching combinations, from the full-fat bridge humbucker to a mix of classic biting and quacky biting single coil tones.

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 out 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 Essential, Premium and Prestige models:

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

00:00 Hello!
00:14 Introduction to the AZ Standard and HSS guitars
01:47 Specs and info
02:47 dyna-MIX9 switching system/Alter Switch explanation
04:34 The neck
05:28 Today’s rig and plan

Clean Sounds
06:03 Clean tone reference chords on all pickup settings
06:42 Funk rhythms
06:55 Grungey droning chords
07:14 Country tones
07:31 Art pop chords
07:43 Blues progression
07:54 Ascending droning indie chords
08:07 Poppy barre chords
08:35 Folk pop chords
08:53 Tone control test
09:53 Atmospheric arpeggios

Light and Medium Overdrive Sounds
10:11 Fat indie rock rhythm chords
10:41 Choppy barre chords
10:50 Southern rock arpeggios
11:10 Strokes-inspired riff
11:29 Garage rock riff
11:45 Alt rock riff
11:59 Upbeat indie barre chords
12:23 Volume control roll off test
12:45 Kings Of Leon inspired riff
12:51 Jangly indie rock riff
13:29 Groovy classic rock riff
13:55 Hendrix inspired riff
14:12 Classic rock riff
14:26 Airbourne inspired rock riff
14:36 More Hendrix stuff
14:56 AC/DC inspired riff
15:15 Quacky rock riff

Heavy Overdrive Sounds
15:23 Van Halen inspired riff
15:42 Hard rock riff
15:58 Single note melodic rock riff
16:19 Alternative rock riff
16:42 Punk rock tones
17:07 Progressive rock riff (Drop D tuning)
17:22 Modern rock palm-muted chords (Drop D)
17:46 Rage Against The Machine inspired riff (Drop D)

Heavy Distortion Sounds (all in Drop D)
18:02 Metal chugging riff
18:20 Mastodon inspired metal riff with country twang
18:31 Hardcore punk sounds
18:59 Classic heavy metal/sludge riff

19:42 My thoughts
20:22 First impressions, looks
20:55 Weight
21:18 Build quality and hardware
22:46 Playability and neck
23:23 Sounds and pickups
25:55 What other similar guitars are out there?
28:09 My conclusions on the AZ Standard HSS 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, Marshall 1959 Super Lead 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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