Samick D-5

I have the standard acoustic 6 string version of the D-5. There's no cutaway, so it it somewhat unwieldy to get to the higher frets. The neck joins the body at the 14th fret, 20 frets in total. Solid spruce top, mahogany sides, back and neck, rosewood fretboard. Non locking Grover tuners. Neck is thin. Mother of pearl inlay around the soundhole, and a decorative stripe in the middle of the back of the guitar. Glossy finish, the lacquer is quite thick. I bought it about 4 years ago, so I guess it would be a 2004 or 2005 model. The pegs seem like pretty cheap plastic. I did not get a hard case with my guitar, just a bag (first "real" guitar).

Quite a loud guitar. Mids are quite punchy, open D and G strings played together produce a very rock-ish sound. High end is bright, too bright for my taste with brand new strings. Lots of bass, but the bass is a bit muddy. I don't know why, but a G note on the low E string seems to not have a lot of sustain. Overall, for a budget guitar, it has a pretty full, robust sound.

Action was perhaps a touch high, but playable. Fretwork is quite good, quite even and no burrs along the sides. The thick lacquer finish is scratch resistant. There is a large and noticable drip of lacquer on the neck of my guitar, though it doesn't hamper play. Looking in the soundhole, the bracing seems to be decent, though the finish inside it a tad rough, a couple of visible patches of glue.

Like another user on this review site, I have recently had some problems with the neck twisting on this guitar, after several years of problem free use. I do not play professional gigs, but I do play pretty much every day, an hour or so on average. I take this guitar in to the guitar shop, and let them do the restringing and maintenance. I'm too chicken to mess with it myself.

The neck dips noticably where it meets the body, and I espied a small crack (about 2 mm in length) on the low E side directly beneath the 14th fret. There is a very noticeable buzz on the high E string too, especially bad at the 13th fret, but fine from the 15th and beyond.

Perhaps some of this can be mitigated when I next visit my guitar tech, but I have do have concerns about the long term viability of this unit.

I've never dealt with Samick directly, just the guitar shop where I bought the guitar. Samick guitars come with a limited lifetime warranty. If one is the original owner, and the guitar is less than 10 years old and has been purchased from an authorized dealer, the guitar can be repaired for free by an authorized Samick dealer if there is a problem due to defects in materials or workmanship. The warranty is here:

http://site.guitareast.com/warranty.pdf

I was very inexperienced when I purchased this guitar. I had tried several others in the shop (Walden, Yamaha), but within the budget I had set (< $300 Canadian at the time), it sounded brighter and punchier than the other models I tried within the price range. In retrospect, it may have been a better idea to buy a higher end used guitar, but going used does have its own perils. Overall, I feel this is a decent first guitar for a beginning level player.

Mine is the dreadnought cutaway D5-BCE model, with a Sitka Spruce top, mahog. sides. Nice abalone inlays around sound hole. Good looking bookmatch inlay on the back. 22 frets, pickup in bridge, on board tuner, takes a 9 volt battery. Great finish, rosewood fretboard, silver grover non-locking tuners. Greg Bennet signed on headstock. Gloss finish looks good. You are attracted to the finish and the beauty of this guitar.
Has bass/mid/treble/presence controls on board, LCD readout for the tuner, volume control, on-off switch for tuner.
Incoming, it is really a nice looking unit with a fair amount of features for the initial asking price.

Ah, this is another story. I plan on trading it soon, I just cannot take it anymore. I have other plain acoustics that sound so much better that were same or less money.
Using a Line 6 amp on total clean, (no reverb, tremelo, nothing), this thing overwhelms so fast there doesn't seem to be a point where you can have the guitar volume and the amp volume equalized for a nice sound. It is a big, boomy sound that just overwhelms the pickup, and I get clipping, harmonics I don't want, some fret buzz. All this dissapears if I just play it like an acoustic without the amp, but then, why have the pickup?
Bright and full, but not rich. I cannot play a soft song on this guitar. Full barre chords, great. Power chords, (on an acoustic??) great - try a little tenderness, forget it...

Setup was non-existent when I got it, but I knew that going in. The private dealer has been good to me, so I bought it since it LOOKED so good there on the wall, and it played pretty good in acoustic mode. Should have plugged it in, dummy me.
Action was nonsense. By the 12th fret we were talking 3/16 of an inch? I adjusted the neck and some of it came in, but then had problems with buzzing on the low frets. Put more concave back into the neck and started shaving the bridge. Three times. Eliminated the spacer between the bridge and pickup. Finally got it right, but the strings are so thick coming from the factory that low E just buzzes on its own. The dealer actually gave me a set of ultralights to try, but I think I am not going to even put them on, it's just too hard to play, and the sound is just too big for me.
Fit and finish were good, no runs, drips or errors on the finish, and like I said, the inlays are really nice. Good dressing on the fret edges. Cheap bridge, cheap pegs, but what do you want for low price? Intonation, ironically, was really good, so the bridge is in the right spot.
Still, with cheap thick strings, action in the stratosphere, and the pickup making it so loud you cannot get a decent volume balance, knock it down unless you want to wail on a cheap elec/acoustic.
Ironically, when I put it into a fuzz/wah/metal mode on my bigger amp, it sounds like a heavy duty metal noise knocker, (great, vibrate the house sound) but I don't think Dragonforce will be buying any acoustics anytime soon to do their thing.
So it doesn't do what it was designed to do.

It is a tank, but I am just a hobbyist and I do not play live. That being said, I think this thing would take a beating without crying. I've dropped mine a couple of times with not even a scratch on the finish.
There is the matter of the nine volt battery affecting how the pickup sounds. Just a little off 9VDC and you begin to get clip and distortion. Carry a spare battery is all I would do.
My strap buttons, tuners, and other things seem solid, so I think it is reliable and durable. Wood seems solid, takes a knocking and sends back a big booming sound. No vibration in the body at all.
This part they got right.
Later model Greg Bennetts I have seen are showing some real promise, maybe this one was in the development stage?

Never dealt with Samick. Have no idea if it even came with a warranty other than the dealer saying, "If it has problems, just bring it back."
I now intend to, since I cannot get the sound out of it I want.
The dealer, on the other hand, has been excellent, so I will rate him high.

Been playing everyday for 6 months now. Own some other acoustics, and a few electrics. A real mish-mash of units.
Line 6 Spider III and Spyder Jam amps, A factory B-stock Digitech GNX3000. It all works on all my guitars except for this one.
If it was stolen I would just forget it.
I wish I had plugged it in before I bought it.
I love the finish - Samick has that down pat. I hate the sound and buzz.
I compared it to some other off brand acoustics, and this did sound better in acoustic mode. So I got half of what I paid for. But I didn't want just another acoustic, and it fails in the electric mode.
So for that, it gets half a rating, a 5.

Mine is a dreadnaught, with a cutaway.
Rosewood fretboard, Spruce top, Mahogany sides.
Beautiful guitar.
The built-in tuner is a great feature, but I've used more acurate tuners before. Also, after tuning it perfectly (by the tuner) I sometimes will have to sharpen or flatten a string a bit - with no response from the tuner. I can hear the difference, however, most people can not.
I have an exeptionally fine-tuned ear, and the differenece I can detect would escape mose people.
The ease of use of the built in tuner is very good.

Mine is a D5-CE with a cutaway. This is a loud guitar, with a nice sound to it.

The Strings were HUGE! Way too thick for my preferance. I replaced them after the 1st week, with lighter guage strings. Much better.
The action is too hight for my preferance. I will be sanding down the bridge.
This is a beautiful guitar.

Good solid finish on this. It got knocked over, onto a brick floor - not a mark.
I think it's a good, dependable guitar.

No experience with customer support.

I've been playing 30 years. I like this guitar a lot, although the action is a bit high for me. I play jazz, funk, blues, rock, R & B - many styles.
I play hundreds and hundreds of different chords, all up and down the neck. Many highly unusual chords, too . . .
The action is a bit high for sliding chords, especially after the 7th fret or so.
I feel sanding the bridge to bring it down 1/32" will help me a lot.

The featurs of this guitar i won't complain about. It's good if you just want a normal acoustic guitar.

The sound is amazing. Very nice tone and sound projection.

The action is perfect and the finish is beautiful.

I've had this guitar for 2 years. The neck twisted and the high E string goes out of tune a you ascend the fretboard. The company makes a good guitar, but it's definatley not reliable. I played this acoustic about 3 hours a day for 2 years, which may have been the case.

I'm going to contact the company about this guitar to see if I can get a refund.

Since I've had this guitar for only two years, the guitar shouldn't be worthless after such a short time. I definately recommend this guitar for bigginers, who are planning on getting a better guitar after a year or two, but for those guitar teachers out there who play thier guitar 3 hours a day... get something expensive.

Dreadnought body, grover tuners (really nice, stay in tune perfectly), hardwood, would like a cutaway body (doesn't have one)

Sound is great in comparison to other #160 steel-strings. Nice bass, overall nice tones.

Lovely finish - looks fantastic, flawless, action not too bad, perhaps a little too high,

Had it for at least half a year, seems very solidly put together, I sometimes bang the top to make a beat and it doesn't complain at all.

N/A

Been playing four years, acoustic and electric, I'm now fitting a pickup so maybe I should have opted for the #210 electro-acoustic with a cutaway. I would buy this again, for the price it is fantastic! Aimed at a much higher market than price indicates, made by the biggest manufacturer of stringed instruments worldwide, I compared this to other guitars (Yamaha etc.) and I only this one filled my criteria.

- Bought new in Canada 2002, made in Indonesia
- 20 Frets
- Solid spruce top
- Mohogany sides and back
- Rosewood fingerboard
- Grover tuners
- Glossy finish
- Looks really nice, glossy, sharp colours

Highs are clear, bass is decent but lacks warmth. Too noisy for my liking, buzzes at times when played hard and not perfectly (unforgiving). Chords come alive when stummed hard. Great on pentatonic leads.

Beautifully finished, guitar looks awesome. Way too much action. Crappy factory strings. Cheap looking pegs though...

Solid wood / construction and grover tuners mean this guitar should last a while. Strap button will need to be replaced (cheap plastic).

Not used

Been playing for 5 years, this guitar is a good deal for the money, although you'll have to tweak it to make it great. The guitar's looks are amazing, unfortunately the play is just O.K... you're probably better off buying a good used one at that price though.