Enya Inspire Guitar Review: Futuristic Bargain or Overhyped Hype?
At first glance, the Enya Inspire looks like an incredible deal — sleek, modern, and packed with features at a budget-friendly price. But does it actually deliver?
Today, you’ll get two takes: one from a tech, and one from a player. Let’s start on the bench.
First impressions were solid. The fit and finish are clean, fret ends are smooth, and the guitar feels light and well-balanced — unanimous thumbs-up there.
Digging deeper…
Hardware was properly torqued and didn’t feel like cheap pot metal. I especially liked the inset output jack, which helps prevent looseness over time — though it’ll be a headache if it ever needs replacing. (And it probably will; jacks take more abuse than almost any other part.)
Neck relief was dialed in perfectly. The neck set angles — both vertical and horizontal — were spot on. That said, the action was just a hair high for this style of guitar: about .010″ too high on both the bass and treble sides. Nitpicking? Maybe. But it matters.
There was insufficient clearance for open strings on the first fret. All frets, including the zero fret were as high as you can readily get – 0.060″ – Often (regardless of what AI & U-Tube say), a zero fret needs to be just a tad taller than the first fret. Normally, if the factory levels frets (but not the zero fret), you’ll have sufficient clearance. In this case, we had some dead and buzzing open strings.
As you’ll soon learn, we had to level/crown anyway, so problem fixed.
Pickup pole pieces were all within ideal range — a detail many manufacturers overlook. Sadly, intonation was way off out of the box. Not a huge deal — it was easy to adjust — but still disappointing at this price point.
The trem bridge was floated at 3/32″ on the bass side, but sat noticeably higher on the treble side. Should be an easy fix, right? Just tweak the trem spring tension on the treble side while re-tuning the solid strings until the bridge floats evenly. Or, if you prefer a higher float, loosen the bass side instead.
But here’s the catch: the Enya Inspire uses a single external tension adjustment that controls all the trem springs together — no individual spring adjustment. There might be a workaround if you remove the trem block cover, but the screw heads are hidden beneath decorative plugs. And if you pop those out? According to what I’ve read, you void the warranty.
Still with me? Cool. Because this is where most techs would stop. But fretwork can make or break a guitar, so I pulled out the fret rocker.
But first — that covered trem cavity came back to bite me again. I always remove backplates on S-style guitars for faster string changes. No dice here. Instead, I had to fish the ball ends out through tiny holes using dental tools, too much time, and a vocabulary best left off camera.
With the strings finally off, I started checking the frets. The first few — cowboy chord territory — were fine. But around the seventh fret, things got bumpy. My fret rocker started dancing. From there to the last fret, I found inconsistencies across the board — some high on the bass side, some on the treble, some just under the D and G strings. It was, frankly, a mess.
To be fair, if you’re just strumming cowboy chords, you might never notice. But most buyers looking at a futuristic guitar like this are going to want clean fretting and fast action across the full board — and they’re not going to get it out of the box.
I ended up doing a light level and crown, reseating a few loose frets, and dialing in some nut area clearance for better open string action. Then I worked through sandpaper grits up to 2000 and finished with a Dremel polish.
So… happy ending, right?
Well, let’s do the math:
- $500 for the guitar
- $100 for a proper setup (expected)
- $70 more for fretwork, strings, tax
Now you’ve got a $700 guitar — and if you break a string on stage? Hope you’ve packed dental tools or maybe find a dentist in the audience?
That’s fine — if you know what you’re getting into. But many buyers don’t realize even a new guitar needs setup work. Add in fret and nut issues, and you’re gambling with tone and playability.
Now let’s hand it off to Dan and Liam to see how it actually plays.
Enya Inspire Review Summary
The Good
- Good feel & balance
- Quality hardware
- Smooth fret ends
- Neck relief properly set
- Pickup pole heights set right
- Decent sound from a small speaker
The Bad
- Jack likely to be costly to replace
- Open strings hitting first fret
- Action was a little high
- Intonation wasn’t close
- Bridge float uneven and difficult to adjust
- String changes can be difficult
- Many uneven frets – required level/crown
- Unplugged, lacks sufficient volume
The Ugly
Hiding the cover screws and voiding warranty if it’s removed (if what I read is true), makes it impossible to properly setup this guitar. And imagine breaking a string on stage and having to use dental tools to fish out the strings from the trem block!
Hank’s Opinion
Leo invented this “wheel”. I think he got it pretty well right the first time. I suppose marketing demands that guitar builders come up with new wrinkles to break through the ocean of ads we all have to wade through daily.
But what works for marketing doesn’t often work well in a product. Especially a product what was just about perfect in version 1.0
