39 Inch Electric Guitar, DST-550 Solid Double-cut Poplar Body Electric Guitar for Intermediate & Pro Players, 7 Tone-switching Options & Tremolo Bridge, Bonus Bag, Ice Blue

I’ve owned and consistently played the DST200 for 7 months now and comparing it to my 5 Squier Affinitys and 2 Bullets (Teles and Starts) purchased over the past 6/7 years from Amazon because these guitars are in the same price and quality categories and I’ve had adequate time to make a fair opinion. Over all it’s a great guitar and surpasses a Squire Bullet but falls short of the Affinity line which was my unreasonable expectation considering the $70 difference. It probably falls the middle of a Bullet and Affinity but I would chose the DST200 over a Bullet or Sonic due to the over all feel, primarily the body wood which I think contributes to the overall tone, an idea debated in some circles (the tone wood conspiracy lol). I’ll try not to repeat what’s all ready been said so my points are it really is a good feeling guitar to play, kind of thin but setups and inotates very well contributing the overall tuning. The black finish is professional and top notch! The electronics sound great and the additional splitting humbucker is useful. Some players don’t prefer the ceramic pickups but they sounded good to my ears lending to all the classic Fender tones in all 5 switch positions with the added push/pull switch for the bridge humbucker (a nice competitive idea from Donner). The plastic nut was cut perfectly and the original Donner tremolo is good and compatible to a stock Squier vintage type. The frets are smaller in diameter compared to the larger fender/squier which could make or break a player’s opinion but I’ve accepted it (still like jumbos for the feel and longevity). Now swapping out parts could be a problem, I’m always modding and found that some of my numerous loaded pickguards didn’t fit resulting in drilling extra holes for the 11 screws, the horn portion didn’t exactly line up and the tremolo template was slightly off and required some shaving. I swapped out the stock tremolo for a fender gold vintage and it was a perfect fit. The body is the same size of an Affinity meaning it’s smaller than the standard Fender Strat. When I replaced the stock tuning machines with gold vintage F-hole Fenders I found the holes had been reverted back to a smaller diameter with plugs then redrilled for smaller holes as if Donner was using larger tuners at one time. These “plugs” popped out when I tried to replace the original retainer rings so I had to tap them back in and repair the cracks and splits with wood filler, sanding and a repaint which brings me to an inconsistentancy, in the stock pictures the headstock is shown painted black but mine was a natural finish. I just painted mine with black lacquer and buffed to a professional shine. I also swapped out the pups and pots for some better alnico brand and rewired the split humbucker switch to go series/parallel (personal preference) and I stayed with original Donner pickguard as others didn’t exactly fit. I also kept the cheap import 5 way switch but will swap it eventually as the cheapies get scratchy over time and using. I replaced the stock boat input plate and jack with Fender and found a slight difference in size but nothing significant I’ve also replaced the plastic nut with a high quality precut bone, this is new territory to me as further adjustments are needed like recutting slots due to string buzz and intonation problems but it was a perfect fit in the slot (found an exact replacement on Amazon with the same measurements. This is important!!) I also sanded down the clear satin finish on the back of the neck with some expensive nitrocellulose amber colored lacquer, personal preference. I don’t usually review products but I’m passionate about guitars in general and hope these details are beneficial to anyone. Play, mod and learn!

The good. 5.0 Thick light body. 4.5 Fit and finish is beautiful and spotless with the exception of one small scratch where the heel attaches to the body. 5.0 Locking tuners 5.0 Tremolo 5.0 Neck is thin and awesome! Since this is actually an Ibanez knockoff, that's understandable. 4.5 The humbucker pickup is the best pickup I've ever played. The harmonics are better than than the Pearly Gates, and the Fred! I don't know what Donner did but damn! The single coils are ok. The bad. 3.0 Fret sprout, Yikes! Gonna file that down! 4.0 Fret rock, four upper frets have a slight rock. The rest are perfect. About 5 minutes of filing will fix that. 3.0 Double winding the locking tuners. Now why did yall have to do that? Now I gotta change the strings out! Summary. This is a damn good guitar. In fact it is better than any Fender Stratocaster I ever played period, including all the expensive models out there. However, work needs to be done. If you're not good with tools, you may need to pass on this one, wait..learn how to set up a guitar or you'll never have a good one. If you are a pro, grab one of these for your gigs, and leave your expensive strats at home. That humbucker though. Wow! Ok, after all the filing and general setup, my conclusion is that this is the perfect affordable guitar. What would make this the "perfect" guitar? Medium Jumbo frets. That's right! Going back to the Thunderforge humbucker, you can turn the gain all the way up (I have a Peavey triple xxx) and it's still articulate, and not noisy. Go find another pickup that can do that. The natural harmonics are better than any pickups I ever owned.

Awesome guitar!! , it looks incredible and plays fantastic and sounds great!! , you are getting way more guitar than you paid for!!

This guitar is surprisingly good for the price. Frets have no sharp ends, it is light and the neck is thin. It is extremely comfortable to play and has a ton of options tone wise because of the coil split. The tuning stability is good so far. I would definitely recommend this guitar to a beginner over other more popular brands that charge you more because of the brand name. If you are also looking for a solid base to mod, this guitar has a lot of potential as well. Some things it needs work on are adjusting the neck so the action is lower, saddle adjustments so the intonation is better, and the whammy bar hole which gave me trouble because it has debris that didn't let me twist it all the way in, for that I think this is a solid 4.3/5

I have the Void Black DST-400. Packed in a gig bag within the box... undamaged. No blemishes on finish. Guitar is indeed a Solid Alder body. Pickups are pretty good. The mid and neck pickups are hot. Now, this guitar has some weight to it, but that's ok. I haven't played a guitar like this since the late 80s. It has all the sound characteristics of a Fender Strat, but not the price tag. The tremolo works fine even though I personally never use it, and the action is a tad higher than what I'm used to playing but I can fix that no problem. The tuners are very good. This guitar surprisingly has better sustain than I thought it would have given that it's a Strat style guitar. The tone and volume knobs don't crackle or make any noise when adjusting. I have had some budget guitars where that was the case. The fret edges could use a little smoothing out but other than that, they're fine. The fretboard on mine is gorgeous. The nut is plastic, but decent. The humbucker is very well balanced and has a high output. In a nutshell, for the price... you could not ask for a better budget strat. It sort of reminds me of a Charvel I had many moons ago. Get them while they are still available. I can say this was money well spent. Budget guitars can be hit or miss, and in this case... I've got a bullseye. I played this right after unboxing it and after some tuning, I was actually taken back at how good it sounded. The neck feels good on this one but there is no skunk stripe on the back, like the one that is pictured on Donner's promo pics. I might buy another if they don't sell out first. Bottom line, I'm happy with this purchase and I have a newfound respect for Donner. I might just start investing in Donner instruments from now on.

Playing this guitar for the last 3 days and I really love it. Bought 2 other bargain priced guitars and this one is my favorite.The guitar plays great and feels easy and comfortable. Most of the tones I'm getting sound great! I have Fender MIM HSS Player special with a Floyd Rose trem system, Love my Strat! Being totally honest, after I gave this Donner the tune up detailed below, I think I like the feel of the Donner better than my $900 Strat! Not comparing tone , just ease of how it plays and feels in my hand. So why don't I think this guitar is good for beginners even though its a great value even after spending additional money to get it right. Out of the box this guitar felt pretty bad. The finish is just okay. Listed as transparent Black, it appears just a low luster black until you look real close. You can just make out the wood grain through the black. could have used a bit more time on the buffing wheel as well. I'd say its a 3 out of 5 in the looks fit and finish department. The neck shape and satin finish on the back of the neck are great. The fret board was dry but a decent piece of Rose wood.Just needed a little lemon oil. It comes with a set of .009 -.042 D'Addario strings.... that had been sitting long enough to begin to rust. With a new set of strings I attempted to tune the guitar but it soon became apparent that the tuners were junk. If you're a beginner and don't know how decent tuners should feel or work, you might think you were doing something wrong. One of the tuners was slipping so bad it was almost unusable. So I ordered a new set of locking tuners for about $40. about the minimum for a usable set. The nut was cut okay but would need a little TLC. The fret work looked pretty good but there were about 4 frets that needed a bit of tapping down and even some leveling and minor re-crowning and a final polish Fret work is not difficult if you know how to do it and have the proper tools. This kind of Fret work runs about $75 or more if you need to pay someone to do it for you. The stock tremolo system (whammy bar) is pretty much junk. At first inspection its looks good and has a large trem block even though it appears to be some kind of pot metal , not brass or steel as it should be. After an hour of tweaking and adjustment I only managed to make marginal improvements in the feel but zero improvements in tuning stability even with new locking tuners and nut cut properly. There are many tremolo systems available and prices range from $20 to over $200 not including installation. Another task a beginner wouldn't want to attempt. I'm Hoping to find a suitable replacement in the $50 price range probably a Wilkinson. Until then I just don't use the whammy bar.or it will immediately go out of tune. Lastly the electronics. I'm actually very happy with the sound of the two single coil pickups and the humbucker in the bridge sounds okay clean to light couch tones. A high gain pedal and the tone and clarity suffers considerably. Changing pickups is another job I don't recommend a beginner attempt but the good news is the stock pickups are fine for a beginner as well as the stock electronics. I'm changing the bridge Humbucker to an EVH WG. At $169 new that pickup costs about what this guitar does. I got lucky and found an open box one for sale for $79. I'll most likely upgrade the pots and switch as well but they're working fine for now. I honestly think this guitar is a great value. With a total out of pocket of less than $500 I'll have a fantastic playing and sounding Strat type guitar. I just can't recommend it as a good beginner guitar unless you have a friend who is a guitar tech.

At 250 bucks I really didn’t expect much, I’m a luthier and a 57 year guitar player.. I bought this guitar with the idea of modifying it to see if I could make it compare to a Fender Stratocaster since it has an alder body like a Stratocaster.. My plans were to put a Strat neck on it and set it up with Alnico pickups, Grover tuning pegs, Roller nut and strings.. After I took it out of the box, I removed the strings and checked the neck relief, the neck was relieved .008” on the 8th fret. I personally like a bit more relief so I adjusted it to .012”.. then I checked the fret height.. the frets were perfectly level except for the 19th fret which was just .004 high.. That’s not too bad, and probably wouldn’t bother any beginner or intermediate player, Because they usually don’t play above the 17th fret.. But I do play above 17 so I filed it down and polished it.. While checking the rest of the frets for sharp edges and rough surfaces, I couldn’t find anything that needed attention.. So I took the pick guard off and low and behold, I found Alnico pickups with a coil splitter on the bridge Humbucker.. The wiring looked very well done with enough wire in case you wanted to add or change something with the potentiometers, switch, or pickups.. Being pleasantly surprised, I installed a Guyker brass roller nut, which took some time and work.. (if you don’t know what you’re doing at this point, please have a professional luthier install this nut for you). Then I strung it up with a set of D’Addario NYXL .010 strings, set the action at .065” (12th fret) on the low E string and .060 on the high E.. Then I plugged in to a Marshal half stack and put it through its paces.. I’ve been playing this guitar every day for the last 56 days.. and I can’t find anything I would change on it.. It plays excellent, it holds tune (with the stock tuning pegs) and the neck feels good in my hand.. So to recap, I changed the nut (personal preference) I changed the Strings (personal preference) a I set the relief and the action ( personal preferences also) … None of these personal preferences were needed to repair the guitar .. in my Opinion this guitar is a beginners priced guitar with intermediate/professional quality .. I’m going to buy the DLP-124 Donner Les Paul after Christmas and see if it’s made as well as this jewel 💎

I ordered this guitar twice. The first one had tremolo bridge issues where the screws to the bridge were place incorrectly on the body and the tremolo rubbed against the body inside cavity. They tried to conceal it by super tightening the bridge to the body where it would not move. Also the tremolo bar would just fall out of the socket. I returned it. I like the guitar, so I ordered a second one, this one played beautifully and everything about it was nice. But then I noticed it did not include the allen wrench to the truss rod adjustment; it had the other two allen wrenches but no truss rod wrench. Made me suspicious, so I checked. The truss rod bolt, it appeared to be stripped, that's why it wasn't included. SHADY!!! My opinion is that the deep discount on this otherwise fantastic guitar is because they are a batch of guitars that have been reworked for re-sale. Such a shame, I would have payed the regular price for a 100% good one.