Awesome axe! Please elaborate as to how it's improved over the original. Thanks.
1) When I took out the guitar of the case I realized that it is even lighter than the other majesty series. On a body scale, it weighs only 3.1kg while the IC 7 Majesty brought up 3.3kg. However, the body scale I used for that does not measure validly in that range. I guess the difference is bigger than 200g.
2) The next thing was that the guitar came out of the box almost in tune (except for the seventh string). Of course, this is no specific indicator but when I set up the guitar almost no adjustment to the truss rod was necessary. For now, I one the guitar for a few days and no readjustment was necessary either. From my experience that is remarkable for a Majesty Guitar. I also own an Artisan Majesty. For both the IC 7 and the Artisan recurrent adjustments of the truss rod were necessary during the first year or so. I would say that my Majesty guitars are now equally stable. However, initially there was a lot of retuning and maintenance necessary for the previous majesties.
3) After approximately 20h of use there is no sign of wearing off on the hardware. The knobs seem to be very resistant because they are just painted black with a glossy finish.
4) Easier string change because the locking tuners have been updated; they now feature a bigger hole for the strings.
5) It sounds a bit darker to my than the standard Majesty and a lot darker than the Artisan Series. For me the Artisan Series have the brightest tone. Furthermore, the PU' don't do this noise cancelling thing so strong any more. The illuminators have the tendency to supress quieter note and pronounce the louder ones when played simultaneously. You will hear that instantly if you hit hard a chord on the A-string. During that chord rings, you can try to get some tone out of the higher strings by picking them softly. You will be surprised how strong this suppression effect is on the illuminators. Still, I like this effect; it is just much less in the Monarchy Series.
Limitations of my observations:
1) Short observation time; wear off of the hardware might still happen.
2) No statistical relevance. Except for (4) all observations could be a result of production variety.
3) No eligible scale.
Regards, J
