Schecter A-7 Elite Diamond Series

made in korea,neck throu tune-o-matic bridg,maple neck throgh a mohagony body, 1-volume-1 tone-3way selecter.duncan design pickups,grover tuners.24 fret,25.5 inch scale

I dont rate a guitar based on stock piups,I am acustomed to switching out any the pickups on just about every guitar.The guitar sounds verry good un-pluged wich is my personal first test.unplugged the guitar sounds like it has a thick low-end and I could feel it vibrate throgh my t-shirt.The stock pickups suck beyond my ability to measure suckdome.It gives a low mud sound on the lower strings and almost nothing on the high strings.changed to dimarzio tone zone in the bridg and now it sounds awsome.Thick but not muddy,highs are not bright but they are distinct and articulate.The highs seam to have a range of there own isted of just hearing highs.Great metal-prog metal guitar.I run it through a custom hand made Hayes 550 maffic when I can and a hot rodded crate solid state when I practice.Obviously the crate is not even an acceptible amp compared to the custome tube amp but I manage to get buy because of the guitars naturually good tone quality.

The guitar is built verry well.I have alwayes heard that korean guitars were junk but I cant agree based on the schecters I have owned.It seames there is nothing that looks like a flaw or mistake no misaligned any thing.Its a simple design and every thing looks as thogh is was put together as it should have bean.I bout it from an individual and he set it up perfictly for himself so I don't know about factory set-up.

I would hate to gig without a back up but if I had to I would be as comfortable with this as i would any outher solid bridg guitar.others have said this has a feel that inspires confidence and I agree

havent had the pleasure

bean playing about 5 years so I enlisted the help of verry experianced friends.I really like the tone,some what les paul, I wanted a neck trough cuz every body talked aboput them.There are 3 minor things I hate about the guitar, none relating to sound.Its all about playability.first off its ugly,the top horn sweaps up insted of back toward the body.second the bottom horn makes it dificult to access the upper register....dificult not impossible, I have learned over the past year to lift my thumb off the neck and bring it out in front of the strings.I also play the guitar rather high compared to most wanna be rock stars so I am playing it in the classical possition wich means I can keep my fretting wrist strate and reach areond the neck.the final thing is verry minor,I like to switch between the pickups "on the fly" like petrucci.The switch is down behind the tone knob and reaching down to hit it quickly has bean dificult for me to learn.I tend to hit the tone knob.Moving it proved in practical because the holes drilled for the knobs were of different size.I have desided to overcome this as i have the other issue with practice. The price verses tone makes this guitar worth the adjustment in playing technique.I would definatly recomend this guitar over Ibanez jackson and esp...these brands all want to build there guitars out of basswood or alder(nothing wrong with those woods they just seam thin sounding to me) and for this price there is no way you would get a neck throgh from those companies.

I'm not usually a fan of imports, but this has fairly nice features considering the price. Here is the rundown:

Neck-Thru construction
24 frets, 25.5" scale
Interesting body shape, semi arch-top
1 Vol, 1 Tone, 3-way selector
2 Duncan Designed pickups (promptly replaced with DiMarzios)
Mahogany body, Maple neck
Ultra Violet finish
Tune-O-Matic bridge (stop tailpiece)
Binded neck, Rosewood fingerboard

I have to subtract a point for the lame pickups and 3-way pickup selector. Despite the price range, manufacturers of import guitars have been able to offer USA made pickups (Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, EMG) while still keeping the price down.

The A7 sounded fairly good even with the lame Duncan Design pickups, which I've never experienced before, which tells me the guitar just simply has good tone. It's definitely resonant, with a lot of sustain, warmth and bite. When I replaced the pickups with DiMarzios (Tone Zone 7 in bridge, Air Norton in neck) it really became a phenominal sounding guitar. I absolutely love it.

You can get a very wide range of tones with this guitar, it is very versatile. It sounds amazing for just about any kind of rock/metal style. I am currently using it for my death metal project and it has amazing tone and growl. Great dynamics, crunch, sustain, resonance, clarity, warmth and all that, but most of all it has a very unique voice. I haven't really heard a guitar with this tonal character before, it's very pleasing. Although much of what I'm saying can be attributed to the pickups (and my tube amps), the construction and the woods used contribute a LOT.

I am deducting a point due to the queer pickups.

Superb finish, fretjob, action and intonation. It plays extremely smooth and fast. It was setup buy the tech at Drum City Guitar Land in Colorado so I can't be sure how it was setup from the factory, but I'll just rate this based on how I reecieved it regardless.

Seems fine.

I usually play USA/Custom guitars, but I was on the lookout for a backup 7-string and I believe I found a gem. This guitar is a great value. Assuming you can play, swap out the pickups and use quality amps (tube), this guitar should reward you with great tones and playability. Not to mention it looks cool.

Although there are several detailed reviews of this model here already, let me use this space to clear up a few inconsistencies in the earlier reviews:

--Designed by Schecter, made to Schecter's specs in Korea by Samick sometime in the late '90s. They don't make 'em anymore, so you're looking at eBay if you want one nowadays.

--Neckthru, MAPLE neck with mahogany body wings (not mahogany neck, like an earlier reviewer stated. The ESP LTD neckthru 7-strings from the same era as this guitar had mahogany necks--personally, I think maple is a better neck material for 7-strings, being brighter and crisper sounding). Guitar also does NOT have a maple top, even though it has an archtop body style, which often indicates a maple top on other guitars (like a Les Paul, for instance). When looking for these guitars on eBay and such, keep the model numbers clear: The A-7 and A-7+ were bolt-on neck guitars using the same funky Avenger body shape as the A-7 Elite being reviewed here. Among the other Schecter 7-strings, the C-7+ and 007 Elite are set-neck guitars. The A-7 *ELITE* was the only production neckthru 7-string that Schecter has EVER made. So if you see an A-7 listed on eBay, look very closely and ask questions to determine which model it is.

--24-fret Rosewood fretboard w/double-diamond inlay at 12th fret only; cream-colored binding around neck and headstock.

--Grover mini-tuners, fixed Tune-o-matic style bridge and tailpiece, like a Les Paul.

--Duncan Design humbuckers w/three-way switch and tone/volume controls.

--Black and metallic violet were the only color options on this model, no transluscent finishes that I'm aware of. Mine is black.

Bottom line: good basic features for a no-frills neckthru 7-string. No fancy electronics or wood choices, just good meat-and-potatos stuff. When I opened up the control cavity, all of the pots and switches turned out to be high-quality gear by first-rate manufacturers--no cheapo third-rate electronics that will wear out quickly. Some Korean-made guitars have really shitty hardware--bravo to Schecter for putting the good stuff in all their guitars.

The first way to test a solid-body electric's sound is to play it without amplification. Played that way, my A-7 Elite is reasonably resonant--not as much so as USA Jacksons that I've played and owned, but a lot more so than most of the Korean-made electrics I've tried. It's clearly a quality guitar from this perspective.

Seven-string guitars are best when made with neck-thru construction, in my opinion, because the low-B string rings out clear and true--certainly more so than bolt-on neck guitars. I can play complex chords using the low-B string, and everything sounds balanced and articulate. And if you want to grind out a bunch of low power chords--oh yeah, it'll do that very well! Shreds like crazy, also. I don't know why Ibanez insists on making a bunch of basswood-bodied, bolt-on 7-strings--this A-7 Elite absolutely slays any Ibanez 7-string I've ever tried in terms of sound, including the very expensive Universe guitars.

When plugged in, the cheap crappiness of the stock Duncan Design ("DD", for short) pickups is revealed immediately. They are shrill, distant-sounding, and lack fullness. If you buy an A-7 Elite, ditch the DD pickups IMMEDIATELY!!! I swapped out the bridge DD for a real Duncan Distortion-7. Instant heavy metal boner, man!!! :) I love the Distortion in my six-string guitars, and the 7-string version is just as good and makes a nice combination with the A-7 Elite's design.
The resulting sound is very close to my Jackson Soloist w/Distortion pickup, maybe even a little crisper, since the A-7 doesn't have a Floyd Rose bridge to muddle the sound, like my Jackson does. If you wanted something a little less hot, I would recommend the 7-string versions of the Duncan Custom or JB for the bridge position of the A-7 Elite. You'd have to do a lot of body routing to fit the EMG 7-string pickups in this guitar, unfortunately. I'd recommend getting a neckthru ESP LTD guitar if you want to go that way, since the EMGs were standard on those.

Another nice thing--the A-7 Elite has a very large body, and the combo of a Duncan Distortion with all of that maple and mahogany yields an absolutely massive sound! Still very crisp, but just freakin' huge.

Haven't gotten around to swapping out the neck DD pickup yet, but that one isn't as dreadful as the original bridge pickup was. Schecter says on their web site that the DD pickups are "95% as good" as the real Duncans. Not so!!

My '6' rating counts in the fact that Schecter put in crappy stock pickups. With an upgrade, it easily rates a '9'. A '10' exists only as the perfect sound in my imagination.

Since I bought the guitar (slightly) used, I can't speak to the factory setup, but it only took about 15 minutes to set this guitar up with silly low action as good as almost any other guitar I've owned. The truss rod adjustment was easy and has held steady--I haven't had to tweak it since my initial setup when I got the guitar.

The frets are reasonably well finished. They are not as smooth as I'd normally want them, but it is not difficult to move up and down the neck rapidly. I haven't noticed any fretting out or excess buzzing, which would indicate improperly leveled frets--not always the case with lower-priced Korean guitars.

Obviously, this is a mass-produced, relatively inexpensive guitar, so you're not going to get the kind of incredible fretjob that you'd see on a handmade USA Schecter. Still, you could take this guitar to a good repair guy and he'd be able to recrown the frets to that standard. But it's not necessary--the factory fretjob is good enough to get you by until they wear down enough for the first leveling/recrowning that you'd eventually get on any guitar.

Apart from the frets, the fit and finish on this guitar are exemplary, considering its price. The only cheapness I can see is that the paint is thin enough for you to be able to see the neck/bodywing joins on the backside of the body. But I'm not sure that thin paint is such a problem--overly thick paint can really deaden a guitar's tone, in my opinion. And who spends that much time with their eyeballs four inches away from the guitar, anyway? I've never nicked the paint yet, and I'm not terribly easy on my guitars.

The hardware is first rate, and the guitar has very stable tuning. I'll go for that.

Everything seems really bulletproof on this guitar. It doesn't feel cheap or flimsy in any way. I've never had the strap come off, and I've never had any hardware come loose. I can imagine this guitar serving me reliably for many years.

Never dealt with them. At least their web site still includes specifications for their out-of-production guitars, including the A-7 Elite. ESP and Jackson don't do that with their web sites.

If you want a neckthru 7-string, your options are now very limited. For the money that I paid, I don't think you can touch the A-7 Elite. It's a nice-playing, nice-sounding guitar that doesn't feel cheap in any way. A real bargain, I'd say, if you can find one on eBay. They don't come up all that often on 'the Bay', unfortunately.

I would still like to get a neckthru 7-string with a Floyd Rose bridge to compliment my A-7 Elite, and I'm looking at a Carvin DC727C or a used ESP LTD M-307/MH-307. But no way I'll get into either one of those for nearly as cheap as I got this Schecter. I highly recommend this guitar to any 7-string player.

don't know the year, bought second hand, 7 string guitar, mahogany body with mahogany neck and rosewood fretboard, 2 diamond inlays at 12 fret, 24th frets, big frets. Huge neck, one volume and one tone dial, 3 pickup position, duncan designed 7 pole humbuckers. Body is one piece with neck, grove tuners n black, black gloss finish, tune-omatic bridge, body style is quiet bizzare but very smart, has a reveresd headstock like a leftie strat.... has to be seen on website.

This guitar was bought for 3 reasons 1) I saw steve vai with a seven string, he played real nice with it, not that i play like him ;), 2) Wanted the extra string instead of downtuneing for some tunes I pratice and for riffs. 3) Ibanez K7 was 1300 pound!

My style is Heavy rock, blues, metal, thrash, shred, basically love playing guiatr. It suits all styles as this plays well all over the neck. Great for seven string shred! As noisy as any passive pickups, they duncan designed, not so bad a bit of alet down, I have just put EMGs into my gordon smith and they aer fantastically powerful. The B string can get lost when playing shred for example. I feel this wouldn't happen with better pickups in my opinion. It's not as if you can't play this straight away. Theres in chunkiness in them to get the best out of open string s on th B string. Bass/Treble pcikups act well for stock. Our usual les paul 3 pickup selector gives enough variety of sounds to make noise!

I love the look, the neck is easy to get used to. I dislike the pickups, I think that shecter should dump these duncan designed cheap things. Seymour duncans sound loads better! I wish it wasn't black!

WEll the top 2 strings rattle like a snake. Everything else was sound I will give a mark of ten here because guitar was second hand! There are no bangs or chips anywhere.

Live playing no problem, hardware is off excellent quality, all covered in black chrome. Slid strap butons. very dependable. I always have a backup, I always use different guitars and differnet sounds anyway.

NO opinion on company THe Rythum HOuse aer always extremely helpful.
Always get my stuff from there

Great guitar amaxing value for money. I fyou r looking for a seven string don' be tempted to part with more money unless you have to have a floyd rose trem bridge and dimarzio paf pickups. You can get pickup replacments for about 150 that would make this sound a thousand times better. Its strudy and reliable and made from mahogany. Not to weighty either.

2001 model, made in Korea. 7-string, 24 frets with 2 diamond markers at 12th fret only. Rosewood fret board with creme binding with all normal position markers. 1 Volume, 1 Tone (simplicity not flexability but Schecter have left the leads from the pick-ups to attach to a push/pull potentiometer ready for setting up a lush little coil tap (shame that they didn't just shove that in as standard for a coupla extra bucks?) which if you get it fitted by a reputable luthier will not invalidate the warranty - how cool is that!) and a toggle switch.

Got some sweet Duncan designed pick-ups on it - makes my Marshall crunch nicely! I believe the body to be Mahogany but I'm guessing it's got a Maple veneer for the contoured top like the Les Paul because you can get translucent finish versions - neck is Maple.
Wicked upward horn, double cut-away styling with all black hardware comprising of a tunomatic bridge with some neat mini Grover machine-heads. Nice 25 1/2 inch scale length - just right for 6'5" rythym players with chunky fingers like me! Free gigbag.

Neck-thru-body for sweet sustain - in the UK a guitar like this normally set you back #1000 - #2000 - a snip at #300 with import tax and some money to my brother for bringing it back with him!

I play Heavy rock style rythym to Thrash (I'm the brother of the reviewer below by the way he bought my guitar off Musicians friend and then bought it to me in the UK - he lives Stateside) and that is where I believe this guitar excels - I always wanted an ESP but this is easily as good for less money!

I use a Marshall Valvestate 8280 stereo chorus with this and it sounds great - gives me a nice full sound. The bridge humbucker is just way too powerful to use on clean channel as you can hear the distortion breaking through but if you switch to the neck pick-up you get a real sweet clean sound! A nice thrashy crunch with the distortion racked up or switch to the neck pick-up for some mellow lead sounds - and sustaaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnn. No dislikes on the sound.

The Guitar is setup in the US (a big sticker on the back says so!) and as far as I am concerned it was setup ready to play - I haven't had to tweak anything yet! I've had worse problems with shop bought guitars needing a full set-up before being played. Action is just so - the pickups seem to be set in just the right places, I can't fault it!

The only flaw I could find (and it's not much of one) is the creme binding on the neck has a weird looking filleted edge which like like it has been hand filed - it's been pretty well done but close-up it looks a little weird - only the owner would ever know about it and it's really no big deal.

Fretwork par excellence - No buzz - I've paid more for shop bought guitars and they buzz like a bitch and need sorting! My brother mentions loose controls and a loose jack socket in his review of my guitar but the tone control literally just needed tightening (thought the volume one does need it as well now) and the jack socket isn't loose at all and is only in an awkward position if you don't use a right angle jack socket and use it to follow the guitars curve and hook it over the rear strap button. BTW the strap buckles are excellently designed - normally when I buy a guitar I go straight out and buy straplocks (by Schecter or Dunlop) but the buckles on this guitar are such a good size and shape that you don't even need to consider them (shame coz I ordered my straplocks a couple of days before the guitar arrived).

Extremely well finished gloss black paint and this stuff really can take a beating - the first time I got this outta my gig bag I accidently whacked it into a wall with quite some force, no marks at all - most guitars would have chipped and I would have cried!

The hardware seems to look pretty sturdy should stand the test of time (only two months use so far). I will be quite happy to gig without a spare for mech/elec breakdowns - I will only have one for string breaks and different tunings.

The strap buttons are excellently designed - normally when I buy a guitar I go straight out and buy straplocks (by Schecter or Dunlop) but the buttons on this guitar are such a good size and shape that you don't even need to consider them (shame coz I ordered my straplocks a couple of days before the guitar arrived).

Never had to use Scechters support.

Warranty seems better than any warranty I've had for anything before (icluding cars and consumer electronics). Limited lifetime warranty can't be bad.

I have been playing for about 12 years on and off, my other kit at the moment is the Marshall Valvestate already mentioned and a cheap Hondo Explorer as a spare, might be getting a little more kit together soon though as I'll be gigging in the coming months. My band had our first gig a few weeks back (just before I got this lovely Schecter) and we've just got to get some more material together and then we hit the rough road of Rock 'n' Roll!

If it were lost or stolen - I'd have to buy two new ones (shame they've stopped making them! But Schechter have some other nice guitars in their Elite Diamond series and any one of those would do me!) and a four barrel elephant gun to perform a precision popular Jewish Operation.

I love it's looks - ugly but well hung (sorta - LOL).

I wish Schechter had seen fit to add the coil tap (and perhaps a phase switch) as standard to the Elite Diamond series - surely it would onlay have added a couple of bucks!

Buy one now - the value for money is second to none!!!!!

2001 model (Korean I think?). USA setup (but see below).
Features as described in other reviews. Black Mini-Grover
machine heads (ratio seems less than a full size model on a modern Les Paul). Stop tail. Black. 7-string. Good basic spec.. no fancy extras (e.g. no coil/phase taps, whammy, etc.). Surprisingly light.
I think 7-strings is a gimmick - get a decent amp and speakers and/or
de-tune a little - but that is a personal preference. The neck is unusually wide though (not fat, just wide) to accomodate the extra string.

This is my brother's - it suits his heavy metal tastes (Metallica, classic rock). Not really desgned for blues/classic rock -- but
(despite what previous reviewers say) I really like the pick-ups. They have a nice Les Paul -like growl to them. You could play
blues and classic rock perfectly fine on this -- might look a bit
odd, but would sound fine.

Ok, we are going to deduct a few points here. Treble pot was very loose on arrival. Input jack is not very positive - may be loose, the
jack plug can be pivoted quite a lot - perhaps by design? - but felt loose to me). Black finish and action were very good. Now I felt the neck was uncomfortably wide and I would not buy a 7-string like this for myself - made my hands ache. However, my brother is a giant and it may not bother him. I dare say it is something you can get used to (some of the new 6/7/8 string basses have even wider necks)
- but you may need to adapt your playing technique. With a narrower neck, and better Quality Assurance, they could get this up to 10.

Nice strap buttons, well positioned. Should take live playing without problem -- although loose electrics on arrival might be
something to watch for (probably just not checked properly then worked loose in transit?).

Did not respond to my emailed question. I bought from Musicians Friend who were also difficult and unresponsive to deal with, but did ultimately provide desired response. Not sure why they made things so difficult - really unnecessary.

Playing for 1.5 yrs. Play Les Paul, Japanese original, & acoustic.
This was a good deal at closeout price. The neck is much too wide for my taste (we are talking much wider than a wide-neck PRS) - if you are into 7-strings and metal though, I would imagine that this is the business. It certainly looks it and sounds it. Pickups seem surprisingly good.

It has been made in 2000 anywhere but in the US, but I think the guitar was finally set up in the United States. It's got 24 frets with no inlays but two diamonds on the 12th fret. It's got two control knobs, one volume and one tone knob (no coil taps) and a three way selector. Pickup configuration: 2 Duncan designed Humbuckers (I suppose medium output); passive electronics. It's got a mahagony body and a maple neck (Oh, I forgot to mention the construction style of this guitar: neck through!). Finish: Silver Satin. Body Style: Really strange, double cutaway ... Have a look at www.schecterguitars.com! Bridge style: Tune-O-Matic. Tuners: Grover. Neck/Scale: 25 1/2", 24 X-Jumbo Frets. The position of the output jack has not been wisely chosen! No accessoires were included.

This guitar actually suites my music style (progressive rock/metal just like I Mother Earth vs. Dream Theater). I am using this guitar with a Dual Rectifier Top and a Marshall 4*12 cabinet and I can just get the sounds I need out of this guitar: heavy distortion, low driven funky sounds and a brilliant clean sound. The only thing I really would change is the pickups: I think I'm going to replace these Duncan designed Humbuckers with 2 real Seymour Duncan.

Well this guitar was set up almost superb at the factory! Congratulations to Schecter! I know that other people who submitted a review on this guitar were not quite that happy with the factory set-up, but believe me, there were absolutely no flaws (and I inspected it for I think 4 hours! and it didn't even detune!).

Well, yes, this guitar WILL withstand live playing, even without a backup! The finish and the hardware seem to be built to last almost forever!! Strap buttons are solid!
You can really depend on this guitar.

I wrote them four or five e-mails and they answered very quickly, but I've never dealt with the company personally, but if they are as friendly and helpful personally as if they are via e-mail, then the rating for this category would be a 10!

If I knew Schecter Guitars a few years before, I would have never bought an Ibanez!! This guitar is absolutely great and I would buy it again, if it was stolen or lost.
This is a very simple guitar (apart from the design and the neck-through construction) and this is exactly what I wanted, ok, the pickups suck a bit, but I knew that it featured these pickups before I bought it, so it's not the company's fault. But apart from that I really recommend this guitar/manufacturer to all those people who are not willing to spend 2000$ or even more for a good (7-string) guitar. So if you see a Schecter (Diamond Series) Guitar take it and play it and you will see that it's a good one.

1999 Assembled in USA? 24 frets Volume, Tone, three way toggle. Kinda ugly knobs though. 2 Passive Seymore Duncan Design Humbuckers Neck Through body Mahogany Gloss Black Tune-O-Matic Bridge w/stop tailpiece Gotoh tuners all black hardware Dark Rosewood neck with diamond inlays in the 12th fret and creme binding.

I was looking for a seven string with a tunomatic and stop tailpiece vs. a floyd rose. I already have an Ibanez UVMC77 and an RG7620 and both of those are great, but I wanted something easier to string and tune differently. I play from Vai to Korn, Slipknot, Sevendust, etc. I use a Mesa Colosium 300 power amp with an ADA-MP1 preamp through an Alesis Graphic EQ and a Bellari Sonic Exciter. Very quiet with volume and tone all the way up with a huge perfect blend of richness and brightness. Its like mixing a Les Paul or Explorer with an Ibanez Universe but more sustain from the Neck Through construction. Its capable of almost any sound you want out of it.

The action is a somewhat low due to the angle of the neck causing you to have to raise the bridge up to prevent buzzing out. The guitar came setup like crap. I ordered it from Musicians Friend. There was a small nick of paint missing off of the lower horn when it arrived. But its almost unoticable. But regardless I love the sound and will buy another one as soon as I can. No more Ibanez for me.

Haven't had it long enough to have problems yet. But I play heavy muscic and It stays in tune through 4 hours of practice. That nice considering it doesn't have a locking tremolo. I have no fear for playing a gig without a backup. Very solid guitar.

I haven't dealt with Schecter yet.

I have a full rack setup, cabs ,heads , and 7 guitars. I have an Ibanez Universe UVMC77 and RG7621 seven string guitars. I also have a Jem and some other six strings. I would buy this guitar again and again. I love the fact that it is neck through and I didn't have to pay $1000 or more for it. I wish it had more color options other than Violet and Black. I compared it to the ESP seven strings, but for the extra hundred dollars, there is no comparison. Please don't buy this guitar so that there are more of them for me. I really recommend that anyone seriosly interested in seven string to check this out. Screw that, just order it and enjoy.