OK, I've received the OS 8, handled it for more than a few minutes, and can now post at least some initial thoughts on the quality. I've read a lot of other reviews and have looked for things that that other folks have found fault with. I also have looked this thing over far more critically than I have any other instrument that I've purchased, so It will be hard to say if it is better/worse quality than brand X guitars. Also, this isn't an NGD post and I can't stress enough how awesome this thing looks and how quality it looks/feels. I just want to give an honest statement of the quality from my perspective and try to open about what this thing is. Oh, and sorry, not a lot of pictures at the moment and they are from my phone's camera. I can post some more if they are requested.
Starting with the head (or not a head?): There is one tiny itty bitty crack in the grain, at the tip, of one of the rosewood fillets. I mean, I was really looking for things to find this. It is less than a hair wide and maybe 2mm long (with the grain). There doesn't look to be any filler used which may come up as a theme with this guitar. The head (?) looks great on not so nit-picky inspection. Like, really good.
The Neck: Beautiful. The birdseye on the fretboard is quite nice - not really subtle either. It pops and has good contrast and the pic attached is really crappy, so if you don't believe me, I understand. Two things I could comment on: 1. The way the endurneck is shaped and the way the satin finish was applied caused an almost white line on each rosewood fillet where the angle vertex is. I'm betting that most people could find this on their endurnecks. 2. The side markers on the fretboard from frets 1-12 do not perfectly line up with the inlays on the face of the board. This is not noticed when playing (not by me anyways). Other than those two things, the neck feels and looks even more fantastic. The frets feel great, there are no bad ones, no flat spots, they look and sound very level, they don't stick out the side of the fret board like one youtuber commented on. They are filed well enough me. The inlays are cut perfectly, there are no issues there. There is no paint splatter on the back of the neck which I have found on some less expensive instruments.
Neck Joint: I do not have any gaps where the neck meets the pocket. It looks tight and the sustain may be telling me that it is a decent neck joint (Except I'm not the best player around by far so don't hold me to that). The hardware looks good, nothing stripped and it doesn't look cheap (or expensive). I will say this: when I first opened the guitar, I didn't see this but the route on the ash part of the body (bottom of the neck pocket when guitar is laying down) has very slight tiny chips in the cut. It may be due to a dulling milling bit or not enough cutting edges, I'm not sure. It is very slight and again, it doesn't seem like any filler was used and the satin finish probably wouldn't help to fill anything either. Overall I am very pleased with the neck joint. It's solid and is a good fit. No triangle gap on the sides, nothing strange. Not a comment on quality but I don't have any issues with upper fret access and I don't have freaky fingers. My hand may be a bit on the wide side so maybe that helps? Speculation...
Body Back: I think it would be difficult to find anything wrong with the ash on the back of the body. The rich grain would hide a lot of stuff. That being said, I couldn't find anything wrong with it. Looks awesome, I love ash, even though no-one would look at it except for me. Side note, the Ibanez RGIF with that ash body looks pretty sweet.
Top: The figuring looks great (see crappy phone pic). I actually thought it would be a more solid color and less flame than this based on a lot of pictures and videos that I have seen. The arm bevel is getting some wear and the flame doesn't pop as much there. This is probably the biggest quality defect of the guitar but on the whole isn't horrible. It takes some keen inspection to catch it and I imagine that more playing will do more weird things to the satin finish. I also found one teeny tiny crack (same size as the one on the head) on the top that is along with the grain and looks like no filler was applied. I am beginning to wonder if they hate filler at the factory or if they limit its use for this product line. The routes for the pickups were perfect and I am afraid that if I swap them out I will ding up the edges, they are pretty tight. The only cheap thing is the little plastic knob on the 3-way, though I don't think I've ever held a guitar with a nice knob on the pickup selector. Is this a thing?
Speaking of dings, couldn't find any.
Overall opinion (of quality): The quality of this guitar is pretty darn good. If I didn't inspect this thing as hard as I did I don't think I would have noticed half the things I did. To answer OP first question: I can't say that it is on par, certainly not better, regarding quality than MIJ Ibanez or EBMM. Though, for a new EBMM you may pay a lot more than 2k. But the quality is pretty good. Is it 2k good? I'll leave you to answer that but for the feature set and solid feel of this guitar (yes, a 6 lb guitar feels solid) I will definitely keep it and I'm not sure others will ever notice anything I've noticed. I am playing guitar more already, that to me is one of the biggest indicators of value (AxeFX had a similar effect although greater magnitude). TBH with myself, I will damage this thing (as much as I baby it) more than it has any issues from the factory, though a lot less than if it had a headstock.
TL;DR: Pretty good quality. If I spent this much on a new Ibanez I would expect higher quality. The only EBMMs I've cared to own cost 50% more. It's better quality than a lot of $1000 instruments I've seen and it does actually use decent materials, like 1/4" tops, nice ash on the body, and birdseye fretboards (at least my fretboard). I think that for the price, there are going to be some quality tradeoffs in the manufacturing process, but I'm not sure (at least from my single data point that is my instrument) that they will be very extreme. I'll also stress the return period. Don't like it? Think the quality stinks? Return it!
And my wife thinks it looks weird and has a million strings. Told her I was working my way up to the harp.
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