D Angelico Guitars of America EXS-1DH

Spruce laminate top, 2 Kent Armstrong hb's, 2 volume, 2 tone, maple neck with ebony fretboard, gold hardware, lots of binding, MOP inlays, tune-o-matic bridge, Grover Imperial tuners, everything a great jazz box should have

The best test of a jazz guitar is how it sounds acoustically. When I first got it, it was fairly full sounding. I had it set up and raised the action a tiny bit and now it is full and loud acoustically. I have flat wound 11's on it. I use it mainly with my Rivera Jazz Suprema 55 which makes any guitar sound good, but this D'Angelico sounds absoluteley blissful through it. The pickups are excellent and you really get a good tonal variety from the humbuckers. A coil tap would have been an excellent idea just for more variations.

No flaws on this guitar. The finish is perfect. The back is one of the best pieces of wood I have seen on an instrument. My setup guy said the same thing. As for the factory setup, the intonation was a pinch off. The action was also a bit too low. That could very well have been due to environmental change. After 30 something years of playing, there is no way it would come as I like it anyway. Overall, it was decent out of the box, but not like I would want it. You have to get a shipped guitar setup for you no matter what.

This guitar is the real deal. I tried others - Gibson, Eastman, Fender D'Aquisto, etc. Forget about price - this guitar is in that league hands down. I actually liked it the best of all of them. Money was not an object. This guitar replaced my 1990 Gibson Herb Ellis. I needed a top flight jazz box and thought I was going to get an ES175. When you add in the fact that this guitar cost me about $800 less than an Eastman, there is no comparison. Talk about bang for your buck..... I could not believe the quality for the price. I use this withput a backup and will for years to come.

The company is excellent. They talked to me on the phone a few times during purchase and also answered emails after the purchase. The email responses took a few days but they were very good.

I have been playing for over 30 years and own about 25 guitars of all kinds. I would definitely recommend this guitar if you are a jazz player or want to be. It is stunningly beautiful and plays wonderfully. There is real attention to detail - the volume and tone knobs have wood inlays, the paint job on the back of the headstock is gorgeous, the headstock itself is a work of art.

Similar to a Gibson ES-175 in almost every way except: spruce top instead of maple and ebony fingerboard instead of rosewood and it has a 25 inch neck; slightly longer than a Gibson, and Grover Imperial tuners. Everything else is about the same except for cosmetics. For a jazz guitar, this has about all you need.

It has the Jazz tone. I didn't buy it for any other reason so my tone analysis is based on Jazz. I had a Heritage version of the same guitar (except that guitar was solid wood as opposed to laminate) and I like the sound of this one more. I'm not sure if it's the laminate body, but this guitar is less boomy than the Heritage. It may also be because of the spruce laminated top but I'm not sure. The pickups are just as good as what the Heritage had.

Everything great except for a couple of minor things. There was one high fret, and the nut had sharp edges. Once the high fret was fixed and the nut smoothed out, it plays great. These guitars have sort of a weird neck adjustment screw and I haven't figured out what to use to adjust the neck. If anyone else knows, please let me know! Right now the relief is about 7 thousands and I'm running 12's. I'm sure if I put 13's on it would get it to about 10 thousands. The 12's feel very light on this guitar. Maybe because of the neck length? (25 inches) If this were a Gibson Custom Shop I would give it a 7 because of the high expectations. But with this guitar, I was expecting a lot of problems and suprisingly there were only the 2 listed here.

Typical.

Probablly not going to get much support out of these guys. I emailed them about a week ago, and never heard back.

You have to keep in mind that I bought this guitar for under a grand. I would have no problem using this professionaly. I've owned many Gibson custom shops: Howard Roberts, Pat Martino, R7, R8 and a plethora of other Gibson and Heritage guitars. This thing is pretty good. I've been playin' for 44 years.

Korean made, laminated hollow body jazz guitar. Spruce top, maple back and sides. Ebony fretboard. Rosewood tune-o-matic bridge. 2 Humbuckers. This guitar could be called the ES-175 of the D'angelico line. The 175, I believe, has a maple top and rosewood bridge... otherwise about the same. This guitar has a poly finish and a 2-piece neck. Would have liked to seen an Ebony bridge, but for the money...

It sounds like jazz. I hade a Heritage version of this guitar... the Heritage was made out of solid wood but sounded a little boomy. This guitar has a little more of a focused sound. I only care about the neck pickup. I heard that these pickups are a cheaper version of Kent Armstrong pickups, but they sound good. If your rating this for jazz it sounds great. Kind of a one trick pony though. You most likely won't reach for this when you want to play "War pigs."

All-in all very good. It seems like the quality is on par with Gibson. The neck really feels great. I have 12's on it and they feel like 9's. Of course I'm not doing any bending. 2 flaws that aren't major and I could let them slide, but I'll give it a 9 because of them. It has one high fret on number 14 which is a pretty easy fix. And, while the nut was cut very good, perfect in fact, they didn't do a very good job of smoothing out the ends. When I play an F13 in the first position, I can feel a sharp edge. I can take care of it myself with no problem, but I've never felt that on a Gibson. Still, the fretwork is as good as anything I've seen from Gibson's regular production products.

It's fine.

Too early to tell.

I've been playing for 49 years. This is a good all-around jazz guitar, especially for someone who is just getting started in Jazz, a serious student, or someone who just wants to have a jazz box without shelling out the big bucks. I might upgrade to a higher level D'angelico at some point, but I'm pretty happy with it the way it is. Not too much different in quality and features than a Gibson 175. Nowdays if you have the money to spend on a 175, you can find something else much better for the money; or you can find something just as good for a lot less.