# What's up with DiMarzio Fusion Edges in Ibanez Prestiges?



## Axiom451 (Feb 22, 2022)

Every Ibanez Prestige i look at has those DiMarzio Fusion Edge Pickups in it.
Are they special?
They expect me to pay 2200+€ for a RGD Prestige with these in it lolol...


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## Wucan (Feb 22, 2022)

Catch-all mass-ordered pickup they can slap in any of their guitars. People who dislike the set don't usually dislike it enough to not buy the guitar. 

The only recent Prestiges I've seen get discounted were the ones with BKPs (the RG5220 in particular I see being sold second-hand strangely often). That's because the average buyer doesn't care for them even if there's a niche that swears by them.


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## Giest (Feb 22, 2022)

With any guitar I consider buying I factor in changing the pickups off the bat, and I don't think I've ever had a guitar where I did not change the pickups ever. If they sold Prestiges with no pickups I would be all over it, I have no chance in hell of ever seeing my preference of pickups in any factory guitar.

Further on that point, every single off the rack guitar is by nature rack grade unless you are magically the one person on earth who it was all but literally made for. Prestige/Masterbuilt/PS/USA/MIJ doesn't equate to squat until the guitar is set up to the owner, and pickups are definitely a big part of that. Now I'm sure someone has gotten a guitar perfectly set up from factory and off brand PAF/JB/EMG just stirs their batter like no tomorrow, but it's not me and I've bought a lot of brand new guitars.

When it comes time to kick out the jams and I have to choose between a 250$ RG that has been set up to my specs or an out of the box *insert holy grail guitar* I'll grab the el cheapo RG every single time. That high price isn't for your perfect guitar, it's to get you in the conversation. Concentrate on the specs you can't easily change because those are the real nut kickers. There are more than a few guitars out there which I would love to love, but simply hate playing and no amount of pickup swaps will change that.


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## NoodleFace (Feb 22, 2022)

It's better than the V7/V8 pickups they used to ship every ibanez with

Although my Prestige shipped with ToneZone/True Velvet/Air Norton


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## Thesius (Feb 22, 2022)

It's the new tone zone/air norton combo. Ibanez will always put generic all rounder pickups in guitars.


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## k5beaststa (Feb 22, 2022)

They aren't bad, infact I was surprised by how well they sound especially after hearing about how bad they are by so many people. I may swap them out someday solely for aesthetic reasons.


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## AkiraSpectrum (Feb 22, 2022)

They're pickups that Dimarzio made for Ibanez (at their request) for a hotter more modern pickup to offer some variety outside the Dimarzio TZ & AN combination. 

I haven't played them but I've heard they're similar to D-Activators.

As others have said, you can't expect a company will use the pickups you prefer, there are a lot out there and most of the time companies will use pickups that they think will work best for the average person and the 'vibe' of the guitar.


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## rippedflesh89 (Feb 23, 2022)

I've only played the 8-string set that came in my RG5328 and I definitely didn't hate them. I usually always swap out Ibanez pickups right away (except for the D-Activators that came in another guitar) but I kept the Fusion Edges in there for a few months. I tweaked my tone every day trying to get it perfect but I couldn't quite dial out the nasal mids. The clarity is quite good, the low end is tight enough, the high end is smooth and the output is low enough to allow a good amount of dynamics without sounding too thin when the gain is cranked. 

Overall, they really weren't bad pickups. Some of the best stock pickups I've tried in an Ibanez. The only reason I swapped them out is because they weren't quite perfect for the tone I was going for.

I do not think they're all that similar to D-Activators though; I have both the Fusion Edge 8s and the D-Activator 8s (in my RG2228) and even thought they're in slightly different guitars, the tone is pretty different. I'd say the D-Activators have more output while still being a bit brighter. The D-Activators are noticeably tighter in the low end but also noticeably harsher/fizzier in the high end. The mids are more balanced though; I'd still probably describe the D-Activators as nasally but not as bad as the Fusion Edges.


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## EarlWellington (Feb 23, 2022)

I have them in my RGA J-custom and they're actually alright... With the coil tap switch on you get a very decent jangly single coil sound going on. I don't think I see a need to replace them


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## bzhang9 (Feb 23, 2022)

fairly hot, moderately tight, balanced, good saturation, smooth leads, good cleans with nice splits better than most high output pickups. Does most genres decently

Is it that hard to understand


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## Neon_Knight_ (Feb 28, 2022)

AkiraSpectrum said:


> They're pickups that Dimarzio made for Ibanez (at their request) for a hotter more modern pickup to offer some variety outside the Dimarzio TZ & AN combination.
> 
> I haven't played them but I've heard they're similar to D-Activators.
> 
> As others have said, you can't expect a company will use the pickups you prefer, there are a lot out there and most of the time companies will use pickups that they think will work best for the average person and the 'vibe' of the guitar.


DiMarzio claim they sound "similar" to Titans. I can't verify that, as I've never used Titans, but I can believe it based on what I've read/heard about TItans online.

D Activators are a very different animal, which I have in three of my guitars.


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## mechanyx (Feb 28, 2022)

One thing to note is that the Fusion Edge 6, 7 and 8s all sound different. They're in a similar vein but they are different pickups. This is not my opinion. This is from Ibanez.

My 2027XL came with a pair of Fusion Edge 7s in it. They were fine. The guitar didn't sound bad but I changed the pickups out as it wasn't the exact sound I wanted but there is nothing wrong with them and they may be the sound someone wants. There are a lot of pickups other people like that I don't (i.e. JB, Tone Zone, every Bare Knuckle bridge pickup) and there are some stock Ibanez pickups that I really like so you can't really know until you try but like Giest said, probably not a bad idea to be prepared to factor in the cost of some pickups you like.


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## AkiraSpectrum (Feb 28, 2022)

Neon_Knight_ said:


> DiMarzio claim they sound "similar" to Titans. I can't verify that, as I've never used Titans, but I can believe it based on what I've read/heard about TItans online.
> 
> D Activators are a very different animal, which I have in three of my guitars.


Yeah I recently saw that Dimarzio stated Titans are the most similar pickup set. Even though its near impossible to tell the nature of a pickup from soundclips and youtube videos, there seems to be similarities to the Titan (speaking about bridge pickup only) but the FE seem to have a much bigger and darker low end in comparison. The 'dark/muddy' low end was something I've seen a lot recently about the Fusion Edge pickups. My guess is that if Dimarzio dialed back the low end then they'd be more highly regarded, because Titans are pretty well regarded for modern metal and prog metal stuff--I have a set myself and they're awesome!

I haven't played a set of Fusion Edge myself so anything I saw should be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps someday soon i'll try and find a guitar with a set in them and try them out in a local music store because I'm curious myself!


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## Zhysick (Mar 1, 2022)

So you don't like DiMarzio USA made pickups and would prefer if the guitar had stock a different set of DiMarzio USA made pickups? Because the guitar is expensive so the guitar should have a good set of DiMarzio USA made pickups instead a bad set of DiMarzio USA made pickups...

Alrighty...


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## Neon_Knight_ (Mar 1, 2022)

AkiraSpectrum said:


> Yeah I recently saw that Dimarzio stated Titans are the most similar pickup set. Even though its near impossible to tell the nature of a pickup from soundclips and youtube videos, there seems to be similarities to the Titan (speaking about bridge pickup only) but the FE seem to have a much bigger and darker low end in comparison. The 'dark/muddy' low end was something I've seen a lot recently about the Fusion Edge pickups. My guess is that if Dimarzio dialed back the low end then they'd be more highly regarded, because Titans are pretty well regarded for modern metal and prog metal stuff--I have a set myself and they're awesome!
> 
> I haven't played a set of Fusion Edge myself so anything I saw should be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps someday soon i'll try and find a guitar with a set in them and try them out in a local music store because I'm curious myself!


One of my RGs came with stock Fusion Edge pickups, but I swapped them out for D Activators.

I've only tried Fusion Edge in mahogany, so I'll give them a chance in one of my basswood RGs before selling them. They certainly weren't bad, but simply weren't to my taste, so I wasn't going to settle for them for the sake of adding less than 10% to the cost of the guitar.

FWIW Tone Zone / Air Norton would have been even further from my preference than the Fusion Edge set.


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## TheBolivianSniper (Mar 1, 2022)

I will say the Fusion Edges are just so smooth and bland. A little too much low end, not enough treble and kinda stuffy mids. From what I remember the cleans and splits were good, the leads were decent, and it really just didn't work for anything with a lot of gain or tuned low. Definitely lower output and not super aggressive but that would make sense considering they're just a de facto set for everything. Probably would sound good for some shred if you cranked up the pickup height but otherwise I found most other pickup sets do what they did but better.


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