Charvel Model A Plus K

I got this guitar in August of 2003 from Guitar Asylum. Its a 24 fret on ebony neck and a nice amber colored koa top. Pearly gates in the bridge and two single sized dual-screamin-deamons in the mid and neck. The knock off floyd is an absolute piece of double dipped crap. It rattles no matter what.

Volume knob and 1/4" plug wore out in a year. Again, the bar is the worst ever. It has a natural sound, not dirty, but can sound good if set up right.

Poorly set up,frets rip your skin at edge, truss rod unscrewed itself during gig, never got it right again, bar sucks,.

My Ibanez 570 is 16 years old and is far superior to this.

I only bought this guitar because on paper, it sounds great. My first guitar was a charvel 1987 model 4 with Kahler pro. It smokes this $1000 terd all the way. I will never ever buy any other brand than IBANEZ. Get the 1570!!! it is way better and 300 less.!!!

Played for 18 years, I shred , charvel does'nt. Ibanez is for shredders.

First, PICK-UPS! two li' screaming deamons and a Pearly Gates at the bridge. Let me tell you, these go together like bread and butter!
The only thing I did not like so much was the angle of the Tremolo's locking heads. But it is not enough to give less than a 10. Ebony fingerboard, 24 jumbo frets, satin finished neck...And for the price!

It will give you great clean tones. The middle position is very bright and defined for funky, single notes type of stuff.
The Pearly is great delivering the goods for distortion, The neck might take some more tweaking on your part. DO NOT EXPECT A FENDER CLONE. This guitar has its own voice.

Well, compared with my Carvin, the Charvel's action buzzed more out of the box. The neck is wider and the strings resistance to bend higher. The volume knob is poorly positioned and takes parctice not to hit it. It is too close to the high strings, really. Other than that, it rocks.

Looks Very dependable. Strap buttons will not need replacing.
Great finish and hardware. But only time can tell.

Who knows, now you have to deal with Fenfer since they bought 'em...

Great guitar if you want a good clean sound without sacrificing HARD ROCKING tones. I play everything from Praise and Worship to Prog/Power Metal and use this guitar and my Carvin 127 in both venues. MODEL A is great and versatile which is what I need.

Who cares it was made in Japan

2003 Koa wood top over mahogany body, birds eye maple neck ebony board 24 frets. 5-way switch with two lil screamin demons and a pearly gates at the bridge. Satin finish on the neck and super gloss armour on the body Very flat wide neck (even moreso than afew other charvels I have. There was supposed to be only 50 made with the clear finish and 40 with transparent red but I sort of have my doubts now with them being blown out at low prices by the discount houses.

Sound is nothing short of exceptional! The mix of these pickups is perfect. I play mostly clean with the occasional foray into heavy distortion and it suits this perfectly but my son plays pretty much the opposite and he has already snagged it for recording sessions. The pickups are also very quiet and from day one have no problems with feedback or microphonics on high gain settings. Acousticly the guitar rings. I have not found one that resonates harmonics this well. I have played it through anything from Mesa DC5 to a powered mixer I use with preamp cables that is the king of clean.

The Japanese are to be revered for the CNC machining of this axe. Every part of it fits perfectly save one issue. The ebony board is rounded at the edges between the frets which makes it a dream to play but when they did this they undermined the fret wire. What this did initially was to make the edges of the frets sharp. At that point it was irritating but not too much of an issue but four months later there has been some shrinking of the ebony and the edges of the frets are exposed enough and sharp enough to cut you. Ebony has always been a very stable wood but I believe this is no longer true with what is available these days. (I replaced a fingerboard on my 12 string with an ebony board from Stewmac and have just had to re-grind the ends of the frets as the board had shrunk). This problem is the only reason I am giving a 9 as it really deseves a 10

I installed strap locks only because I would hate to drop it. The factory ones were huge and well worth keeping on. The other reason is that most of my straps have locks so it only seemed right. Broken strings happen so backups are only smart but I would expect this to last any normal abuse.

The website is totally useless unless you want to buy something. I sent a letter to the company to see about the status of warranty as I had purchased this through an ebay dealer and didn't have a normal bill of sale. Even though I included an email address as well as my postal address the company thought it was in their best interests to ignore me. I would expect that no help for any problems would be had from these guys.

I have been playing since 1963. I currently have 15 guitars with the top ones being 1961 Hofner 470, Heritage H150CM Classic Flametop, G&L Legacy and a Vantage 728 GDT neckthrough. This is right up there with these guitars and is probably the most sonically versitile of them all. For hand made guitars, I think North America rules as with G&L and Heritage but you can't beat the Japanese for precision. The one thing I would really like to know is what kind of strings they use. They are excellent but the website only says they are NPS. I take that to mean nickel plated steel. Well, such is life.