Jackson DK2 S

Made in Japan, sustaniac driver pickup, 24 frets, sharktooth inlays,bolt on neck, licensed floyd and duncan design bridge and middle pick ups. Balck in color.

What I did was upgrade the bridge pu with a j90c usa jackson pickup and block the floyd rose(I really hate those things). Also upgraded the tuning keys with grover tuners. Now with the upgrades It beats some usa guitars(pretty much all the bottom line usa guitars some higher ones too). The body is perfectly balanced, the neck feels and looks great, the sustaniac is killer and now the guitar totally shreds.Without the modifications I would probably rate the guitar a little lower do to the floyd and the low ouput duncan design crap. But if you like how it is upgrade the pickup and youll love it.

I do all my setups myself so to rate the setup before hand (either by the store or someone else) is just retarted. But on the other hand it was super easy to setup(after the floyd being blocked) and once setup great it has never changed.

Great live and studio guitar,very solid and dependable. Made in japan and USA jackson guitars are simply the best. Also you can gig without a backup just make sure to have good strings on it.

never delt with

I love this thing, I could never bare to get rid of it let alone it get stolen. And excellent metal guitar,excellent value. Buy this guitar before they stop making them. And if someone that works for jackson or other guitar companies read this, dont put a floyd on all your guitars unless its a real floyd rose. Thanx

First of all, I will state that I will try to give an objective review (no offense to anyone else) and you may feel that my ratings are a bit low. Let's be realistic: this is a $500 guitar. Well I think you are all familiar with the features on the guitar and want to find out about the Sustainer Driver. For more specs try http://www.jacksonguitars.com/gear/gear.php?op=3&partno=DK2S_Dinky The sustainer driver is a marvellous device which more people should use. Infinite sustain until the batteries run out. Controllable feedback at any volume. There is even a third mode which sustains whatever note you play and fades it into a harmonic. Then again, there is no substitute for natural sustain of a guitar but this comes close at least. This guitar came with a hard case and a catalogue. No manual though. I am giving it an 8 because, just think about it, how many production guitars have the sustainer driver? Fernandes has their own model on their guitars but this one has the Sustainiac Stealth - different companies but I do not know which is better. The Floyd Rose gives me some pain but it justifies its existence with what it can do. Maybe I will get an Original Floyd Rose Pro in the future.

I play traditional metal and some clean stuff (blues, folk) also through effects and an amp I am too embarrassed about to cite! I guess my gear does not reveal the guitar's capabilities in their fullest, even if it is a $480 guitar. The sustainer driver is- sterile sounding as a pickup. Can't get harmonics too easily but it is possible with this pickup. I was amused that the sustainer was more silent than the humbucker in the bridge! It is an active pickup when you don't use its "sustaining" properties - TAKE THE WIRE OUT OF THE JACK WHEN YOU'RE NOT PLAYING! This is to ensure longer battery life. I think mine lasted for a month and a half and changing batteries is painless, just open the compartment at the back of the guitar. Why do I imagine some people bitching about active electronics? Anyway the other pickups are reasonable, considering the price (they are Duncan designed pickups). I think I will replace them in the future, not because they are bad but I would rather get better pickups.

Well when the guitar came there was very little I had to do. It came to Singapore from the US and all I needed was some tuning. No flaws on the guitar but I noticed that they used the wrong screw for the backplate! It was just ONE screw and it did not make much of a difference so I will stop niggling. Everything was perfectly set up by Guitar Xpress before I got it. The guitar is black and smudges easily. The controls worked fine but I was hoping the volume pot was a little further away from the strings so I tightened the knob and now it's fine.

I have played live before but this is quite a new guitar. The neck has warped on the bass side I think due to the climate changes, from Japan to USA to Singapore (where I reside). I will get this problem rectified soon; the action is a little high now to compensate for the buzzing due to the warped neck. I am no professional but I played this guitar in school and it's pretty solid. The bridge maintains tuning stability relatively well even after some abuse.

Sorry I have not dealt with Jackson yet.

I got this guitar from Guitar Xpress and Lloyd really helped me a lot even despite all the problems I caused for him. I checked the prices of this guitar elsewhere and Guitar Xpress sells Jacksons for the cheapest price. If you have to get one, trust me - it is in your best interest to get it from them. My uncle has lent me his 1970+ Fender Stratocaster which has better sustain but the pickups are VERY noisy as you know. I will remind him to change his pickups! I also have another Aspen guitar given to me (20 years old) and you can imagine how god it is. Still, this Jackson is my most precious possession and I will not part with it. If you like the Jackson Dinky guitars but cannot afford the USA models then I think this model will be the best Jackson has. I think it will be a long time before I will get another electric guitar (if ever) because I am just thinking of upgrading this one when I make up my mind. Although this is subjective, the guitar just looks killer and it even surpassed the pictures I saw of it on the internet. Overall, a wonderful guitar that withstands daily playing. It has been doing so for a few months I think.

This has pretty much the standard rock guitar setup: 24 fret, double locking trem (Jackson JT580 LP) flamed maple top, maple neck w/ rosewood fingerboard, alder body etc. But where this guitar comes into its own is the sustainer, with the sustainer in the neck postion, a duncan designed h/b in the bridge and a duncan designed s/c in the middle position. The control set up is as follows: master volume pot, master tone pot, sustain pot, sustain on/off mini switch, sustain mode (3-way) mini switch.

I play a wide range of types of music, but broght this mainly as a rock guitar (obviously.) I usually play this through a Marshall half stack, with a few effects beforehand. Baring in mind the purpose of the sustainer in the neck (to be used to keep the strings vibrating while the bridge h/b picks up the note) i was fairly impressed with the performance of the sustainer when used as a pickup. Allthough i find this sound to be a bit hollow for my liking, it suits clean styles surprisingly well. The Duncan designed h/b in the bridge has a good sound for most types of music, and works for pretty much any type of sound you need. However, because of the active circuitry inside this guitar, it causes the bridge p/u to distort sligthly even at low volumes, at first i fort this was the p/u itself, but when i had it checked out, found it to be the electronics onboard. This dosent matter to me, as most of the time this p/u is used with distortion anyway. The middle pick up seemed a tab boring for me, and so out they went, and in came a new set of duncan rails, which sound 10 times more impressive, i also made the choice to add a real duncan JB into the bridge, and got this coil tapped via a push/pull pot. Once i had done this i cant find a single problem with the sound on this guitar.

I've only had one problem with this guitar, and that was a damaged pot, but that can't be avoided, as it just wore out over time. The guys at the store i got it from got me a new pot in a few minutes and it was sorted. Appart from this, the guitar plays beatifully for a guitar of this price, and i am very impressed with the overall playability of the guitar, with nice, low action, and good intonation.

I risked a gig with this without a backup (dumb) but it went fine, and it seems this will last a long time, even if you play it live. I replaced the strap buttons with strap locks (im parranoid) but i reality i didnt realy need to, because the ones it came with held it fine. Overall i can depend on this guitar to stay in one piece!

Like I said, it only broke once, and the guys at the store didnt need to send it away even, so i cant complain.

These guitars (well any guitars) cost a hell of a lot more over here in the UK, for example the list price for one of these is #700-#800! where as in the US you can get it from about half this, and this is true for most makes of guitar. However, i managed to find this in a sale for #500, so in that respect i think it was a good buy. I tried out loads of other guitars before getting this one, but this was the one which seemed to have the best features and sound of the lot. If someone stole this i think i would try and get annother one, if i could afford it... But you gotta love the sustainer though, rockin on...

Holy shit this things got the coolest thing i could imagine on a guitar... A SUSTAINER. Untill i picked this thing up i thought it was a custom thing only. Anyway, it's got double locking tremelo, 24 frets, shark tooth inlays, 1 duncan designed humbucker (bridge PU) and 1 Duncan designed single coil (neck PU).

I don't use the single coil but the humbucker sounds great. I kinda had to screw with the height of the pickup because it was too bassy at 1st but i fixed that with no trouble. Only problem I have with this guitar is that harmonics are hard to get which is a defenit downer because my band plays fast and I try and use lots of harmonics but it's still definetly possible, just a little harder. Other than that, it's great.

Action is probably the sweetest i've ever felt especially since I switched to 13-56 gauge strings and people who have done so know it's hard to get a comfortable action without getting fretboard buzz. I got it right out of the box and it has absolutly no flaws. I got mine in that cool looking blue with black stripes color and it looks beautifule. Everyone who see's it has complemented it, it's just that nice looking. This guitar is just as comfortable playing sitting down as it is standing up especially when you get into those "high-note" solos.

I've played a show with this and it did really well. It was sturdy and stayed in tune through every song. I'de definetly feel comfortable using this without a backup (even though u shouldn't)

I have no idea, i've never dealt with them and i KNOW i won't have 2.

simply put, this guitar is badass and rather then sitting here and reading about how cool it is, GO BUY IT! I was wanting to try other guitars but i'm sure i found the one thats gonna stay with me when our band gets famous :) haha. I don't ever down tune this guitar so i keep it in standard and i was gonna buy a different one for our alternate tunings but i like this guitar so much i'm saving up to re-buy another one!

Tons of goodies... Double locking Floyd Rose tremelo system, shark tooth inlays, rosewood neck (nice and comfortable), duncan designed humbucker and single coil, active sustainer (its fucken badass!), easy access battery...

I simply love it, its got bright tone with a warm side u know? It's weird but ya, its got the best of both worlds. I don't use the single coil at all but it sounds good for what its for. The sustainer is so amazing, i can't imagine living without it! its got three settings- normal, mix, and harmonic- on normal, it sustains as long as u want it to with no need for the amp, u can literally turn ur amp off, plug something into the jack, and u can still hear and feel it working. On mix it gives you a mild harmonic with a less dramatic sustain. On harmonic, it gives u insane screeches and if you hold a note and switch between the three, u can get some cool sounding shit. Extremely clean or extremely distorted, either way, this guitar is impressive.

I got it right out of the box so it had absolutly no scratches or flaws what so ever. the action and intonation were beautifuly set and i got it in the blue "with black stripes" color so i still can't help but wonder, how the fuck is that so good looking? haha, but seriously, you won't be disapointed

Well, i just got it yesterday and it seems like a sturdy guitar, but then again i don't know yet. I'de probably use this without a backup but then again, its never a good idea, especially with floyd rose!

My friend dealt with them once when i was there and they were complete dicks about a repair that was under warrenty but he just screwed it up and blamed it on them! haha, i don't c y u would have 2 deal with them, it's a great guitar!!!

Great price, great guitar, definetly a happy customer and so will u!

2002 japan model,transparent red on a Alder with Flame Maple Veneer finish.24 jumbo frets bolt-on maple neck,JT580 LP Double Locking 2-Point Tremolo bridge, duncan design pickup on bridge and middle position and an active sustainiac pickup on the neck position.Chrome hardware,Shark Fin Position Inlays and a bindin on the neck and headstock.I give a 10 for the nice features.

I play metal and hard rock(metallica,slayer,pantera,soad),and this guitar is simply what I needed.The clean sound Is very good and the harmonic and good.I use a shitty marshall lead 12W and a boss metal zone and this guitar a little more cruchy fat sound.This is why I will change the brigde pickup for A EMG-81 and the middle position for A EMG-SA.But those pickup do the job for the momment.The sustaniac pickup is simply amazing you can hold a harmonic during 3hours if you want.I'll give a great 8 for the sound

This guitar is simply set perfectly, the neck is adjusted perfectly the pickup are ok and this guitar simply look great!

Jackson guitars....

1 year warranty with the company...

I've play for 2 years now,So I needed a good guitar.This one was the right choice.I recommand this guitar for those who want to hard!
LONG LIVE ROCK N'ROLL!

Black cherry finish on basswood body, 24 fret, sharkfin neck inlays, bound bolt-on neck and headstock, chrome hardware, JT580 double-locking tremelo, humbucker Duncan Designed humbucker brudge and single coil middle pickup, Sustainer neck pickup, on/off switch for Sustainer, 3 way toggle switch for Haronic mode, mix mode, and sustain mode, 5-way p/u selector. I give this category a '10' because I can't imagine any more doohickeys you could get on a guitar.

I play mainly hard rock/metal, and this guitar suits my style perfectly. I'm using it with a Line 6 POD and V-amp2 for direct recording, and frankly, every guitar I've owned sounds the same through my POD (Which is great). I have noticed that without the Sustainer on, you can hear a faint distortion when playing clean, which is a bummer. I can eliminate the buzzing/distoriton by flipping the Sustainer mode toggle to the Harmonic mode, but it's still faintly there. If I was a blues or clean player this would be a definite problem with this guitar. I mainly play with only the humbucker, and the sound is great, if not a bit "smothered" sounding. Not bright, but dark. The neck Sustainer pickup acts as a normal pickup when the Sustainer is not on. When set to the neck pickup and you turn the Sustainer on, it automatically switches the humbucker on. The neck pickup sounds a little dull and flat by itself normally. Don't get me wrong, you can get the guitar to sound pretty good for clean or dirty, it just takes some tweaking. It seems that there are some minor sacrifices that need to be made to live with the Sustainer. I bought the guitar because I had played a Jackson PC-1 (The Phil Collen model with the Jackson sustainer system) and was really impressed with the Sustainer on that model, so I ordered the Dk-2S with visions of Sustainers dancing in my head. I must say that I'm dissapointed. I have to think that the Jackson Sustainer is probably a better unit. I mainly wanted to use Sustainer for it's Harmonic mode, but it seems that it only comes through when soloing on the high notes on the B string. On all other strings it creates uncontrolloable feedback with the strings muted. The sustain mode holds notes and chords forever, but I don't see much use for that feature yet. You can really feel it through the whole guitar when it's in this mode, which does a good job of massaging your lap and stomach, but other than that I don't have much use for it. I will probably replace the stock humbucker with a good Dimarzio Evoltion or Seymour Duncan JB, and keep the Sustainer off. Out of the box, the Sustainer is a neat little oddity to have, but I would'nt let that influence my decision to buy this guitar alone. I will try the guitar through a tube amp and see if the Sustainer works any better, but for now I give it a "thumbs-down" rating.

I must say I was really hesitant to buy a Jackson. Years ago when I was really into metal, anyone who was anyone had a Jackson, and being 18, I could only dream about owning one, as they were God-awful expensive, and well over $1000 (More than the car I owned at the time). Now I'm older and can afford the price, but I still can't being myself to spend so much money on a guitar. I've played the USA models and I really can't see the difference between them and the Japan models. I ordered my Jackson through Guitarxpress.com due to recommendations from the Jackson bulletin board, and was severely impressed! My guitar has a mirror smooth finish without a blemish anywhere. The neck is straight and the binding is flawless. Guitarxpress sets all of thier guitars up before shipping, so I can't comment on how these are set up out of the box, but anyone who's a fairly accomplished guitarist will set up their guitar's to thier liking. Even though mine was set up from the store, I still raised the pickups, changed strings to 9's, and lowered the action as low as I could get without any string buzz, which is about 1/8" from the 24th fret. My Dinky now comes with chrome hardware, which is a much needed improvement from the satin finish last came on them from last year's models. The Floyd Rose copy tremolo seems solid enough, and I like the fact that the locking nuts on the bridge are much easier to reach than on an original Floyd, which is under the plate. So far it even stays in tune with the most extreme bends, which amazes me. I have nothing but high praises for this category. I'd put this guitar up against my Ibanez RG-570 anyday.

Since this thing seems so well built, I would rely on this guitar for any gig. As with any Floyd equipped axe, I'd certainly carry a backup. The strap buttons are huge and should withstand anything short of that dumb-ass guitar spinning that was once considered cool back in the 80's, but I always install strap locks anyway.

I spent much time surfing and reading as much as I could before buying. I highly recommend you do the same before buying ANYTHING. If you're particularly interested in a Jackson, go to thier bulletin board and read up. Jackson owners seem like proud parents, and discuss everything from their favorite colors to the best strings to use, and you can gain some good info from owners as to what to look out for. My biggest complaint is that thier site offers no e-mail address to send questions to, so I see support down the road as challenging should I need help. It does come with a lifetime warranty which is cool. (But then again, so do Epiphone Les Pauls, and we all know how those are built!)

I would buy one of these again. They're so damn cheap ($350 for the regular DK-2 without the Sustainer) that I'm gonna buy another one to screw around with. I had an excellent experience with Guitarxpress.com, and it really made a world of difference knowing they were so eager for my business and helpful. I received it with all the factory paperwork, and he even threw in a 2002 Jackson catalog and price sheet that Jackson wants $5.00 for! They were so confident in the Jacksons they sell, that he offered to take it back and pay return shipping if I was'nt 100% satisfied! I know I sound like a commercial, but I was really impressed with the way they do business, and that definitely impacts my buying decisions. I've owned Peavey's, Charvels, Fenders, Gibsons and Ibanez's, and I put this above them all for the price. I would probably just get a regular DK-2 without the Sustainer if I had to do it all over, just because I can't justify the extra money for something that I probably won't use too much. Some other people will probably find it very cool, so try one out for yourself and make up your own mind.

Basiclly a DK-2 but with the Sustainiac Plus System. Made in Japan YES!! Has 3 knobs. 1 Vol. 1 tone. 1 mix. 2 toggle switches 1 on-off and 1 normal, mix and sustain modes. all cool. Duncan Design pickups in the bridge and middle. Sustainiac in the neck. Bound neck 24 frets, sharks teeth. Cool Back Cherry, which is a cool purple.

I tightened all the screws and everything I could then started to really see what this Sustainiac Plus system is all about! I played the heck out of it and so far I love it! I ALWAYS wanted just that little more sustain (as I love the marshall sound but they to me need that little extra push, that's why I traded in my AVT-150 head for a Johnson Marquis, don't laugh it's a great amp - I can get the very same Marshall sound out of it but with more sustain) Anyway I have all the sustain I could EVER dream of now, I just dial it in the way and amount I want!

The first thing as with all guitars I check is it's tuning. Intonation ... very good! Using the tremolo also was very good, you can dive bomb or pull up all you want and it comes back to A=440! This is very important to me, if it's not in tune it's in the trash! I had to remove the trem cover and tighten the screws a few turns but this is to be expected, this leveled the tremolo with the body. The neck is very straight and action is very low, overall excellent I must say!
It takes a few minutes to get use to the "Feel" of it but after you do the guitar becomes ALIVE ... I mean you can feel the power (it kinda vibrates) It's so cool to hit a low E chord and it sustains into feed back and you feel your guitar vibrating ... kinda like hitting the note with you and the two of you are one! WOW is all I can say, this thing is a monster! It's like a new pal playing the guitar with you. And no I'm not wierd, you play one for a few hours and you will know what I mean!

I am glad that I already know how to play loud, as you need to mute the strings your not playing. This might take some time for a beginner guitarist to learn but this guitar will help many and even myself be a better player, this guitar opens so many new avenues I can't wait to play it more! The only down side I see for this guitar is it does not sound like a DK-2 the neck pickup has it's own sound, I like it and by no means is it bad, it's just different, kinda like a semi-acoustic type sounding single coil? To me it's cool but I am glad I have a Strat if I ever need that Stratty single coil sound. I Also have a BC Rich mockingbird neck through and I love the sound of playing on the neck pickup and getting that full sound you can only get from a humbucker in the neck and bridge postilion, that's why I have many guitars, to each thier own.

This one Japan Built, very sturdy. Finish tight ... you can bump it and it won't hurt it!

Never used them, never needed too!

Bottom line --- The Jackson DK-2S is a very very good addition to my guitar collection and I RECOMMEND it! IT's A rock in roll BEAST! Fantastic! Excellent indeed! Hard to Believe they did it for the money..... But money WELL SPENT indeed!!!

ZigiStar

P.S. My old saying "Sooner or later you'll own a Jackson!"
My new saying "Sooner or later you'll own a DK-2S"