in terms of guitar hierarchy (that is, marketing bullshit), it isn't - the model i had was entry, but it wasn't bottom of the line.
it looked very similar to this:
...but, the annoying locking bridge was more like this one:
you'll note that the allan keys in the second picture are triangular, and the ibanez' was triangular. the thumbscrews in the second picture are very close to the ones i had.
but, it had a three way selector like the first one, and, yes, it had a whammy that i used twice. it was also hsh, like the first one, i think - not just a fat strat. but, see, the first guitar is basically a strat copy; the second is more like a prs (and more like my weird black epiphone, which thankfully doesn't have the awful locking mechanism). i had a strat copy, with the hardware more like the prs copy. maybe it was an upgrade, even - which is ironic, given that it was defective.
i mentioned that the ibanez had a warp in the neck - a nasty knot. it was a factory defect, and wasn't playable at places. you couldn't bend around the 8th fret. i would have never ended up with it, otherwise. and, i probably wouldn't have sold it otherwise, either. but, i got to the point where i understood it was a bad guitar and traded it in...
so, is the rx40 a replacement for this?
again - i know the roadstar is a more expensive guitar, but the one i had was defective, so keep that in mind. i'm trying to replace what i actually had, not what i might have had, in theory.
the big differences are:
1) the roadstar had far more expensive hardware, but i'd rather not have the locking mechanism, so i'd prefer the rx40 because it doesn't have that feature. i actually just left it perpetually unlocked! i don't use whammy bars, which is the reason you have these locking mechanisms, and not to stay in tune for normal use. and, i needed weird tunings for, like, soundgarden songs...
2) the roadstar was hsh and had a three way selector switch. the rx40 is hss and has a five way selector switch, which is standard for strats. so, the last two selector switches are a little different - the roadstar had a humbucker in the neck position (which gave it a beefier, gibsonier sound for solos), whereas the rx40 will have a thinner, stratier sound for solos. but, what makes more sense, if you think about it?
i remember my guitar teacher (his name was terry, and he worked at an actual music school. he was mostly a progressive rock and jazz fusion guitarist, running the gamut from hackett to santana to di meola) looking at the guitar and not understanding it. he was a japanese fellow, but a jew ought to ask this question:
"why would you put a single coil in between two humbuckers on a three way selector? if you want to play chords, you do one humbucker; if you want to do leads, you do the other. what do you do with the middle coil?"
if you think about it, what you get with the three way roadstar is:
- the second position combined as a bridge humbucker. sort of.
- the middle position, which nobody uses.
- the fourth position, combined as a neck humbucker. sort of.
so, you're cutting off the first and last positions, really....which means you're eliminating a lot of the point of owning a strat.
what that means is that the roadstar was really just another prs style guitar, just another sg copy, and the middle pickup is just for show - and just to suck your tone by creating noise on the circuit.
in a useable sense, you can create a humbucker in the fourth position on the rx, without losing the fifth position. and, you still get the humbucker at the bridge, which is where you want it on a strat-style guitar. if you want to play a gibson-style guitar, then get one.
so, the roadstar is maybe an example of a design trying too hard to be comprehensive, and instead just coming off as half-assed. they seem to be expensive nowadays, though - although mostly as hhes or as hsses.
i'd rather have the five-way fat strat than the three way selector.
regarding the neck, the rx is plenty fast - which was part of the logic in getting it. and, the neck on the roadstar was broken...
so, yes - i'd consider this a replacement, and a sidegrade, if not an upgrade due to the fact that the roadstar was a defect. i'd rather do away with the locking mechanism, and i'd rather have a five way hss than a three-way hsh. out of all of the combinations, hsh seems to make the least sense to me. as it is, both of my epis have independent humbuckers (and the sg has independent controls), so i don't have any reason to want a strat-like guitar with a humbucker at the neck. that said, i'll take one with a humbucker at the bridge, and one with out it - and that's enough.
that is the next entry in the mega post, and i need to finally figure that out tonight.
