First impression:
The first thing I noticed about this guitar was the nice smell of wood and how warm it feels when you play it, since it doesn't have a thick layer of finish. It just fits perfectly.
Everybody says online that the necks on the DK24 are too thin. Well, I'm used to playing guitars with thicker necks and was worried about how thin might "thin" be. Turns out, without such reviews I wouldn't have even noticed. I've also rather small hands, that might also contribute to this, but seriously, this neck fits perfectly and is super easy to play. It's also very important for me that the back-end of the neck is without finish - I can't bare the thick layer of finish under my thumb and in my palm, it's always sticky and feels off. I need to feel the wood in my hand. Pun intended.
Quality Control & problems:
Some have said QC is bad (it may have been this way at some point, since it's not a "PREMIUM" guitar) but bare in mind that neck sprouts can pop out due to humidity, sometimes the right conditions are needed for this to fix on its own. Can't comment on QC issues about the neck though, this specimen was with ideal neck, perfect frets etc. The only three downsides would've been that
1) the tuning knob nuts were not tight. So the pegs that have the holes for strings to go through them, these pegs were wiggly, almost all of them. Easy fix though. It might've been due to the wood drying after export from factory.
2) the washers or shins for the bolt on neck bolts don't sit completely inside the cravings/holes. So the sides of 2 of them are sticking out a bit, although they should be completely flush, flat inside, to not interfere with playing high. Probably I need to screw the bolts out to see what's the reason for them not being tightly inside. Maybe is easy fix, maybe some drilling is needed. Again, I see no issue since it's an easy fix anyways. And TBH if I didn't have such strong OCD, I probably wouldn't have even noticed this.
3) the bridge was set just a tiny bit too high for my taste and when adjusting this I found out that for some reason the 2 bolt mechanism was not locked from the factory (these bolts have smaller screws inside them that you need to lock according to Gotoh pamphlet included with the guitar. No clue why it wasn't done in the first place, maybe there's a viable reason for this.
Low-Friction volume knob:
For my taste, the low-friction volume knob is problematic, I tend to move my right hand a lot during playing and inevitably I go against the knob. If it's from 10 to 8, the sound difference is not that big, but I've had moments when it's suddenly on 3 and it takes a moment to understand what's going on with the sound. A few times it's turned completely to 0, which, well, has been problematic. This is just a thing that I need to take into account and get used to. No big deal though. Some players who are more ergonomic and less expressive with their right hand, will probably laugh at this paragraph.
Output jack:
The reviews say that over time, DK24 output jacks get loose. We'll see, probably eventually this is a fix that I'll have to do, luckily the parts cost 5-10 euros.
String breakage:
The only slightly negative thing that I still need to look into, has been string breakage. Twice the 1st E string has broken during string change from the tuning peg hole angle (tough to describe, the point where the string comes out from the hole and has this steep angle when you tune the string up). The breakage was definitely not because of the locking tuners, it was this angle being too steep or maybe sharp. I need to look into it, maybe it was just bad luck.
Once the string broke from the saddle during playing. This most likely was normal string breakage though.
Just a little worrying that 3 strings have broke in 2 weeks of usage. Maybe unlucky, not so worried about it currently cause the positives outweigh this by far and fixing a sharp tuning peg takes 2 minutes.
Tuning & bridge:
The Gotoh bridge is sick. Crazy beast. With the locking tuners (and a little of big bends nut sauce) it's just impossible to get the guitar to go out of tune with doing crazy stuff with the whammy bar. Over all, I'm used to checking the tuning after every song played, now I just look silly on the stage, should get rid of this dumb habit.
Sound:
Well, it's a beast. It's really versatile for all kinds of genres. But for rock sounds, this is just top-notch. Crazy fun to play and insane sounds come out of this guitar. Not much to say about it, it's amazing.
Fun stuff:
Luminlay side dots are very cool. It's been a nuisance on a dark stage to find the spots, this really works well.
No load tone knob is useful for dark sounding pickups, works well IMO. I rarely mess around with the tone knob though. I'd imagine if you like to constantly roll it around, then the 10 to 9 "bump" is a bit annoying maybe, dunno.
Mahogany body is not that heavy at all, very balanced weight, feels right.
Conclusion:
Real good guitar, some expectable problems, but such small problems are on high end Gibsons and other big brands also. Feels amazing, sounds amazing, seems to be very durable - these 3 all are that matter. Also looks really good.
){kind=logo}
)
)
)
){kind=logo}
)
