Jet Guitars

[IanBallard]

Has anybody here played one of these? I've heard they are cream of the crop amazing. True, handcrafted guitars.

[Spudman]

I've been following Roine Stolt's career pretty closely, before and after he got Jeff to make him 2 Jets. He's pretty happy with his red one that he played on the Transatlantic tour and Agents of Mercy. He says it's light, super easy to play, and the whole guitar is very alive.

They are absolutely one of the nicest small builder guitars available today. Absolutely gorgeous guitars. If I had 5K to toss around I'd get one too.

[Jeff_H]

They look like killer guitars, but if Ed Roman is the only place to get them I'll never know. I wouldn't buy a set of strings from Ed Roman.

[astrozombie]

They look like killer guitars, but if Ed Roman is the only place to get them I'll never know. I wouldn't buy a set of strings from Ed Roman.

Why?

[whatshisname]

Why?

People have actually started websites dedicated to Ed, and none of them say anything nice. Or, just Google his name, and you'll see why.

I was going to have him build a guitar for me, about 12 years ago, and it was the worst experience of my life. To say that the man is crooked is an understatement.

Now, that's not to say that he's not capable of building great guitars. I do know that he's built some real duds, and has a long history of screwing people over.

If you just go to his website, and do a little reading, you can see that he's a liar, and clearly off his rocker. Lots of false information, that too many people that don't know better fall for.

He also got into a lot of trouble with Gibson, for building counterfeit guitars. It doesn't start, or end with Gibson, either.

[IanBallard]

Eh. Ed Roman is a piece of work to be sure, but he's not even 1/10,000th as crooked as Henry Juszkiewicz of Gibson. I know two people personally who worked for Gibson and they say it was the worst company they've ever worked for (one also worked for Fender and PRS) hands down and both told me that morale is very low, to say the least.

I've played a Quicksilver and it blows the doors off of any Gibson, in my opinion.

Anyway... Jet Guitars... you don't have to buy them from Ed. You can get them straight from the company as far as I know.

[jmh151]

I played one of Ed Roman's Pearlcasters that I found in the used section of Guitar Center. It felt like a custom shop Fender. I wish I bought it- they wanted $999, but Ed Roman's original price was about $2400.

I also played one of his imported Baker guitars that I found used at Sam Ash.Ed sells these for around $1,000. It was a good guitar, but felt like a Schecter import.

The problem with Ed is he never was a luthier. He owned East Coast music in the 80's. He outsources guys to build his guitars- he refers to the practice a "ghostbuilding". The problem is when you trust your product with someone else, it becomes hard to keep track of quality control.

I've seen other small guitar makers run into the same problem with outsourcing. The only difference is Ed Roman is a little more out there and higer profile, so you hear about complaints about him more.

Having said that, I've never dealt with him

[IanBallard]

Very deep set neck tenons are the only way to glue a stable neck onto a guitar. I've been told this for as long as I've been playing music and hanging out with guitar players who know their stuff. I've had friends who've have Gibsons heavily modded, where the original neck is combined with another piece of wood to form a deeper tenon into the body (which is carved out) and the feel automatically is more stable and secure. I think Gibson people dedicated and most are cognitively dissonant (or ignorant) to the engineering problems because... let's face it... if you pay a few thousand dollars for an instrument, you don't want to complain about it. It's like my complaints about Ludwig drums. Totally overrated and poorly designed and built (especially the vintage ones) yet the Ludwig heads will bite your head off for being critical about them. You could say the same thing about Harley Davidson fans too! I think Ed, for all his flaws, is simply exposing the problems with an "American icon" and of course hoards of fans will hate him for doing so because it makes their investment seem in vain. I tend to favor Fenders, but I admit that the old bolt-on design is also riddled with flaws. Why doesn't Fender make neck-through guitars or more innovative designs? Why don't they try some more fine luthier style guitars with more class, rather than rehashing the same tired old designs over and over again? Because fans are fans and they are sticklers for tradition.

Jet guitars, from what I can tell, are amazing American instruments and if it takes Ed Roman to put them out there, that cool with me. I'd rather support small builders who take that extra step in quality than the giant corporate guitar/drum/bass makers.

[DLT]

I have to give credit to Ed Roman for this:

Remember the first SRV Strats? Fender claimed them to have a solid alder body.

Ed (or someone trying to dispose a hot guitar?) cut into one and discovered it was an alder veneer over poplar. BUSTED!!!!

[whatshisname]

All I'm going to say is, if anyone want's to deal with Ed, I promise that I won't say "I told you so" in the thread you start after actually dealing with him.

I will laugh my ass of at you, though.

[Wattage]

Aesthetically they aren't especially appealing, they sort of look like knock-off PRS guitars. Can't speak to the build quality unfortunately.

As for Ed Roman I thought we all decided a while back since he isn't here to defend himself in anyway we'd just leave his name be.

[Spudman]

Why not just contact Jeff at Jet Guitars?