Jackson has added the Soloist SL2 DX to its American Series and it is quite the conundrum; do you prefer this shreddable high-end electric guitar as a hardtail model, a candidate for no-nonsense riffing, or with a Floyd Rose for all kinds of divebombing harmonic madness?
It is a tough choice. The Floyd Rose 1500 Series vibrato is a lot of fun – and it can do subtle flutter, if that’s more your whammy-bar style. But then there is something tidy and uncomplicated about a six-saddle Hipshot hardtail, particularly if you are changing up your tuning on a regular basis.
Either way, you’re getting a guitar that’s built for “speed, tone and reliability,” as Jon Romanowski, vice president of product at Jackson, would have it. You could call it the archetypical metal guitar, or at least the archetypical S-style electric guitar for players whose appetite for gain cannot be sated.
Romanowski says the Soloist SL2 DX is a sign that’s its fully committed to the American Series, having brought the brand home in 2022.
“With features like a neck-through-body design, stainless steel frets, Seymour Duncan pickups, and premium hardware, this guitar is built for speed, tone, and reliability – everything a serious shredder demands,” says Romanowski. “For fans of fast, aggressive playing, this is a game-changer.”
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Now, while you muse on whether the hardtail or the Floyd Rose model would suit your playing needs better, let’s run through some of the other key features on this tricked out S-style.
As Romanowski says, the big ticket items include a pair of Seymour Duncan electric guitar pickups, and it’s a classic pairing of the redoubtable JB humbucker at the bridge and the ’59 humbucker at the neck. These are selected by a five-way blade-style selector switch plus knurled-dome knobs for volume and tone.
As you’d expect from a Jackson Soloist, this has a neck through build, with its three-piece maple neck super-quick and super-stable, too, thanks to those graphite reinforcement rods.
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That neck is sandwiched by an alder body and topped with an ebony fingerboard, rolled edges because this is a bougie high-end build, with a 12” to 16” compound radius presenting players with a state-of-the-art platform for shred. Those inverse shark-fin inlays look neat too, and there are Luminlay glow-in-the-dark side markers for the frets for ease of fretboard navigation under stage lights.
The 24 stainless steel frets are fat and slinky. These guitars are built to feel effortless. Anyone who has spent any time with the American Series Soloist SL3 will know how that neck and fingerboard combo feels. It’s kind of dangerous; in the sense that there is a big temptation to overplay.
It’s fun, sure, but it’s practical, too, with the heel-mounted truss rod adjustment wheel making for easy setup tweaks, and Dunlop dual-locking buttons for your guitar strap as standard. There is set of Gotoh MG-T locking tuners on that classic Jackson-profile six-in-line headstock but that might not be the first thing you notice with all the colour-matching going on. It looks good, especially on that Lemon Ice model.
Other key features? Well, these are turbo-charged S-styles, built out of Jackson’s parent company, Fender’s, facility in Corona, California. They all have the Fender-esque 25.5” scale length. They also ship inside a Jackson Foam-Core guitar case.
Jackson is offering the Soloist SL2 DX with the Hipshot hardtail in Satin Black or Satin Porsche Gray, and the Floyd Rose 1500 Series models in Lemon Ice, Snow White and Satin Black – the latter looking like you could literally walk into Megadeth’s Countdown To Extinction sessions and not look out of place.
These are available now, priced £2,149/$2,399 for the hardtails, £2,249/$2,499 for the Floyds. For more details, head over to Jackson. You can watch UK crossover champs Pest Control put these through their paces in the demo video above.
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