HB JA-60SB Vintage Series : Looks nice - but only that

Very nice looks, the build quality for the first glimpse is about the same as the Squier Affinity range. I bought mine as a project guitar, so I disassembled it. The neck pocket is horriblebut still not unuseable. The sound however is very bad. Clean it is so-so, but lacks warmth and definition. Somehow muddy and ear-piercing at the same time. Distorted even that very little deifinition the clean has is gone. Just a big noise :( Since I have ripped mine already open I have decided to check the pickups. Neck 11.5kOhm (!), bridge 7.7kOhm. Like someone has mixed them up. I thought let's dig deeper, take a look under the hood of the pickups. And there you go: mine had the cheapes ceramic bar magnets, not Alnico 5 as advertised. No wonder it sounded shit. I'm still thinking what replacement pickups I should get. The original one of these had the Wilkinsons, those have a good reputation (I had them in my Vintage Gold Top LP, there they sounded good).

Some other bad points:

-Unpolished frets

-Dry fretboard

-Tuners are tough to turn

My advice: stay away from these unless you are ready for some serious upgrades.