Having trouble deciding which guitar....

[devnull]

So, to start, I haven't played much of any ERG or 7 strings for that matter in many years. The last 7 string I owned/played was an Ibanez UV777bk that I owned for a couple of years and traded off about 8 years ago.

Recently, I have started reading into and researching 8 string guitars as well, but have never had a chance to play one myself for enough time to form an opinion. I now have GAS and will probably be ordering either a 7 or 8 string in the next couple of days. These are the ones I am considering getting, so out of these which would you recommend?

Ibanez RG752FX - It's a generic prestige 7 string, but at the scale I like. Lowest I would tune to is drop A (Had my UV tuned to this as well, just hated the floating bridge)

Ibanez RG8 - By far the cheapest, but I am worried that I will get a dud or I just won't like it. The scale/tuning of this guitar will be new to me and that's not a bad thing. I just don't want to get it and kick myself for not getting a prestige when I could.

Ibanez RG852 - This is considerably more, but I figure, if you're going to do it go big or go home. Who knows if I will like it thought

I've looked at some agile 7 strings, but they don't have the 7 string I would like at the scale I want. If I get a 7 string I want standard tuning and then have the B string dropped to A.

I was kind of considering I can get the rg8 and an agile 7 for the price of the RG852 and get the best of both worlds, but I feel like it's getting 2 decent guitars for the cost of one great guitar.

Choices are hard.

 

[Jeffbro]

852/2228s are the best playing production 8s on the market, you won't be satisfied with an rg8 or agile if you're used to playing a UV

 

[devnull]

852/2228s are the best playing production 8s on the market, you won't be satisfied with an rg8 or agile if you're used to playing a UV

I think the question is if I will feel comfortable playing on an 8 string.

Do you know if with a 27 inch scale, can you still tune to E and have it play comfortably? Something like EBEADGBE

 

[FEcorvus]

I would assume most 8s could play that tuning well since it's standard tuning aside from the 8th string being a wholetone lower

if the tension is too high for it to be comfortable to you, you can always lower string gauge no problem