I consider myself a lucky man, because I own not one, but TWO of the greatest versions of the greatest guitar ever made.
On the right is the first Parker I ever bought, an original
Parker Fly Deluxe. It sat at a local Sam Ash in the used gear section for three years before I finally got to take it home after an entire summer of saving (the new ones retailed for between $2,600-$3,600). One day I came into the store to pick up some strings and a pick and saw it sitting against a Marshall half stack. I was immediately drawn to how thin it is. Being a smaller guy with child's hands I never felt comfortable holding guitars like Epiphones or Gibsons. Even Fenders felt a little too thick to me. At the time, I was playing mostly Ibanez.
I picked it up and couldn't believe how LIGHT it was - just above four pounds. The neck was equally smaller than other guitars, it felt almost too thin. The most unique part of the neck is not the thickness though, it's the carbon fiber material they place over the top. To give you an idea, it's the same stuff they make RC helicopter blades out of. Getting to the point, the neck is SMOOTH and plays faster than anything else out there. So basically what you have in this guitar is extreme comfort.
And the sound...simply put, it blew me away. I'm not talking just in terms of the quality of tone these things put out, but the variety. They can mash insane heavy distortion or sound like any other guitar out there. That includes something as specific in tone as a single pick up Fender. This is because the pickups are active and they have a Fishman Piezo built in to the bridge. Speaking of the bridge, it's unique in design and has all the tuning stability of a floyd rose without having to dick around with allen wrenches for a hour. They also have locking tuners.
On the left is a factory second
Refined Parker Fly Deluxe. I lucked out and caught it on ebay when some guy was ditching a bunch of gear for way less than he should have been charging for it. It's a second because of a few small blemishes in the finish that can't even be noticed unless you look right at them. This is the new version of the Fly that has a few alterations - the internal wiring is no where near as much of a clusterfuck, the neck is a bit thicker, the arrangement of the nobs and the access to the truss rod, etc. Some people say it's improved overall, I'd just say it's different. Both have their pros/cons.
I'm in Chicago so luckily I have two places I can take these to get setup/make alterations - the Parker factory and Third Coast Guitar, which has a few ex-Parker employees. A guy at Third Coast helped me install a new pick up (DiMarzio Supra Distortion III) since I wanted the refined to be the guitar I'd use for heavier music and the original to be my fingerstyle/mellow guitar. The pick up makes in sound insanely good and the heavy tone is crystal clear, even under thick distortion. One word of warning though, changing the pickups or doing maintenance on these is a bitch. The pick ups are not only f-spaced but installed directly into the body with no saddles. The guitar's various parts are also unique and most techs will not be able to set it up properly for you so either learn how to maintain them correctly or be prepared to look high and low for someone that can.
I don't have any recordings with these yet, but I have a couple crappy quality youtube videos if you're interested in hearing them.
Heavy stuff, horrible quality -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7-M2HCMs6k
Mellow tone, decent quality -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc9o-WbVJpY
I have a pretty decent rig too, but I don't have any pictures at the moment. I'll post some later.