Ibanez Q54W

The headless resurgence continues, this time from an iconic brand

- JONATHAN HORSLEY

A BIG PART of the appeal is obvious before even taking the Q54W out of its gig bag. It's so light, so compact. Where's the rest of it? We'd hesitate to call it travel-friendly because that can ghettoize an instrument — but it is exactly that, weighing just a couple of ounces over five pounds.

And it really does look like a guitar for 21st-century adventures in tone and technique, with its Copper Metallic Matte finish perhaps a sign that guitar makers are now looking away from Motor City automobiles and to iPhones for finish inspiration.

The Q54W presents us with a humbucker at the bridge and two R1 single-coil pickups at the middle and neck positions, plus knurled metal dials in Cosmo black to match the bridge. The HSS setup gives us even more core tones.

The five-way blade-style pickup selector switch works in concert with the Alter Switch for Ibanez's Dyna-Mix 9 switching system, offering nine core tone variations.

It's seems slight, but the Q54W is a lot of guitar. The question is whether it was worth sacrificing one of the guitar world's most iconic headstocks in pursuit of a radical new high-performance platform.