Dean Guitars Cadillac Premium

Finish is gloss and looks good, No slop at the neck joint and looks well done up close. I love the body and currently own 2 other US Cadillacs. Stop tailpiece is good but I will probably replace it with a tone pros set. Schaller tuners work well and hold tuning just fine. Mahogany neck is good but a bit thin and I do prefer the V neck on the USA models. Very playable and set up faily low acton with no fret buzz. Guitar came with a hardshell case! The top is an absolutely incredible flame maple. The flame is deeper than tops I have seen on guitars that were twice the price. Body is 1 piece mahogony and the set neck is mahogany with a smooth almost grainles piece of ebony! 2 humbuckers with LesPaul controls. For the price you can not buy a better guitar and I have played Gibisons that are not put together as well for 3 to 4 times the price......

I play fusion and Rock (on this Guitar)and for this the guitar excells. I have different guitars for different styles and this is defintely a rock guitar. I have quite a few amps and this guitar has a unique voice that comes through in all of them. It is extremly quiet and humbuckes are voiced towards mids and highs. Very clear with extremly good seperation and no mudding anywhere on the neck. Very even volume on all the strings. Sounds great with Fuzz and overdive. I have Several differnt boxes and it does fine with all the humbucker tailord boxes that I own. Plus if I wanted to change anything I would have no quams in switching the fatory setup. As it stands it is just fine. I use Fuchs, Marshall, Boogie, Vox, Highwatt and Duncan amps.

Plecked it and it set up nicely. I reccomend this to anyone! Factory setup was ok but I like thigs set to my own paticular tastes. All the hardware is good for a guitar in this price range, but if you do your homework you may find stuff that is better suited to you. Tons of avalable stuff out there. It is not perfect but in the price range it is on hell of a steal.

Finish is good and all the hardware is fine. I have not had any problems with it and I have had good experiences with Dean in the past. So far no need to call on them. I would never gig without a backup and dont recommend that anyone does. If it was the ony guitar I owned I would feel comfortable using it but S--T HAPPENS (and right in the middle of your most rocken set).

I can only go on past experience with Dean, so far so good

I wouldn't have bought it if I did not like it and it is an impressive guitar for the money. In this case you defintely get more than you pay for. Hardshell case is a bonus and I would never use a gigbag for gigging (they should be called homebags, try dropping a guitar in one and see how the finsh fairs)

Hi, all! You can see all of this detail stuff in my 4/10/2002 review below. This is just a review of the extremely superb customer service at Dean. I'll gush more in the appropriate 'box'. For this box, though, I'll change my previous rating from a 10 to a 9, because I finally noticed that my Caddy didn't have coil-splitting pots, and I kinda like being able to split the coils. Read on!

Sounds pretty damn fine, but will be better soon, read on!

The more I look, the less flaws I see (none). You just can't get any better, so a 10 it is!

I've had it over a year, played it hard, and it hasn't broken yet! The finish is still like new. I always gig with a backup, but with the Caddy, it stays in the rack!

This is where my opinion has changed. I thought that Dean was the best in this regard, but Dean has exceeded my wildest expectations! I noticed a little volume 'bleed over' when I turned the volume down on the pickups. The other pickup was still putting out when it was switched out. I emailed Dean support and was called by Pat (a good guy). He explained that I had two choices: change the switch and hot wires on each volume pot and solve that problem, or leave as is. If changed, then the pups would work like a Les Paul and both stop working if the volume on one was turned all the way down with the switch in the center position.

OK by me - I left it alone!

Then I said 'where can I get some push-pull pots, so I can split the coils' and he said 'what's your address and I'll send you some today'!!!!! WHAT'S THIS!!! GEEZUS, these guys go WAY above and beyond the call of duty! It's a shame that I can't pick a number higher than 10 for this!

Oh, yeah, Pat did tell me how to wire the push-pull pots!

So you see, the guitar is going to get so good, that my 2 9's will turn into 10's, but H-C probably wouldn't even post this if I did that 'officially', so you can just take my word for it - this guitar is a near-perfect '10'. If you can find a better guitar in a custom hardshell case for less than $1000, then buy it (you won't find it).

I just want to say a few things. I purchased my Cadillac Select from
West LA Music back in January 02. Apparently it was just back from the
NAMM show and they really wanted to sell it. It is a beautiful guitar,
sounds great, just like the previous reviews stated. I purchased it
for $1000.00 out the door with a gig bag. A few small problems. I got
it home and the neck pickup was cutting in and out. Took it to my repair guy, he replaced the switch (he did state that the wiring was
very cheezy). The only other problem I have noticed was the strap button under the neck came loose. I had to use a bigger screw to hold
it in place. For comparision, I own 7 or 8 USA Gibsons, and never had
any problems like these. The people in the Czech Rep can do fantastic
wood and finish work however I think they still need some lessons in
complete guitar production.

This is a 2000 European (Czech), hand made guitar. It has 22 frets on an ebony fretboard on a one-piece mahogany neck. The neck is set into a one-piece mahogany body that is topped with a carved/figured maple 3 or 5-star top (looks really good!). The body, neck, and headstock are fully bound. The dual Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickups are controlled by a 3-way toggle switch with individual volume and tone controls for each pickup. The tuners are by Schaller and the bridge and stop piece are standard tune-o-matic. The mahogany has a transparent finish. The maple top is a very natural, grainy quilted amberburst. All hardware is gold. The body is the top of a Dean Z and the bottom of a Les Paul (more or less). The relatively thin neck is perfect for my hands. The frets are your basic medium size. I don't know what else you might want on a guitar like this that isn't already on it!

I play rock and blues and whatever else I have to do to get to play rock and blues! With the excellant controls and pickups, you can make this guitar sound any way you like. The Pearly Gates pickups are brighter than most humbuckers, but sound really good. The only way to improve on this guitar would be to use less bright humbuckers and add coil taps for single coil sound.

I studied the fit and finish on this guitar for hours and could find no flaws, whatsoever! You can pay more, but you can't get better workmanship - period! The intonation and action were setup well, but the pickups were shipped in the body and I adjusted them myself. A change from 10's to 9.5 strings required a corresponding adjustment to the neck tension, because of the thin neck, but I REALLY LIKE the thin neck!

I have had no problems since I got it, but have not gigged at all. I have been through many long jam sessions, though, without failure. I expect this to last for my lifetime and then go to my son, then my grandson (if my son gets off his duff, that is!)

While I have had no problems with this guitar, I have dealt with Dean in the past. Their customer support cannot be beat by anybody! If your dealer gives you a problem, don't blame Dean, just contact them and all will be resolved quickly. If necessary, the president and CEO will solve the problem himself (Hi, Elliott!)

I have played (off and on) since 1964. I also own a Dean ML XT, a Dean EVO Special, a Squier Strat, a Crate GFX120 half-stack, a Carvin X-100B half-stack, and a Digitech RP2000. I like everything about this guitar from sound to feel to playability. If lost or stolen, I would replace it for sure! These guys here at H-C say no guitar is perfect, but this one comes close. For me, it is perfect. It is a hand-made professional quality guitar delivered in a deluxe hard-shell case for less than $900. If you want better, you'll have to fork out over $2000. And, that's for the new Time Capsule version of the same guitar! Sorry Gibson, you can't compete with these kind of prices.