Up for sale, a 1980 Aria Pro II LP-400 in excellent, 100% original condition and in perfect working order, complete with the original hardshell case and hangtags. This expertly crafted Japanese guitar clearly takes its cues from its Gibson cousin (no relation), and while this Aria Pro II falls squarely under the umbrella of the famed "lawsuit" guitars, competing directly with Greco and Tokai, no legal action was ever taken against Aria for these faithful iterations.
Produced at the Matsumoku factory, this LP-400 closely matches Gibson's 70s-era construction with a sandwich mahogany body, three-piece carved maple top, and pair of stock humbuckers with double cream bobbins. The guitar has a natural lively acoustic voice, and the pickups each have an output of 8k ohms for a palette of sounds ranging from bold, beefy punch to focused, barky, midrange cut. This Aria Pro II weighs 8lbs 12oz, professionally setup here at Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar with 10-46 strings, accurate intonation, and fast action.
The three-piece maple neck has a medium C-shaped profile carve at the nut with generous shoulder in every register and notable heft as you travel up the fretboard, measuring .825" deep at the 1st fret and 1.005" at the 12th. The bound rosewood fretboard is an extremely dark, tight-grained cut, featuring trapezoid inlay and medium jumbo fretwire. The frets have their full factory height and plenty of meat, with only light wear beneath the plain strings on frets 1-7 and virtually no wear further up the fretboard. The guitar plays cleanly in every register with a straight neck and responsive, optimally adjusted truss rod. The scale length is 24 3/4”, and the original carved bone nut measures 1 11/16“ in width. The headstock has a classic "open book" shape and "Standard" truss rod cover, and the stock Kluson-style tuning machines turn smoothly with double ring keystone buttons.
On the body, the electronics function as intended with a circuit board wiring harness very similar to the Tokai Love Rocks produced concurrently in Japan. The pickups are so exacting in their Gibson approximation that the double cream bobbins even have “T Top” markings. The chrome hardware is bright and clean, and all of the original plastics are intact. The gloss Tobacco Sunburst gloss finish highlights light birdseye figuring in the maple on the outer thirds of the top, and cosmetic wear is limited to some small scattered dings and light finish scratches on the back, and similar yet more restrained wear on the edges of the top. The gloss finish on the neck profile is flawless.
The original black tolex hardshell case is included, along with the original manual and hangtag.
