Why do people beat up on Carvin?

[headlessdeadguy]

I love my Carvin. Plays and sounds great

 

[chunktone]

I NEVER trash Carvin. In fact I've played leterally thousands of Gibsons, and many PRS***'s and Carvin smokes them both.

 

[glpg80]

I NEVER trash Carvin. In fact I've played leterally thousands of Gibsons, and many PRS***'s and Carvin smokes them both.

+2 on this too

 

[1big1]

i'm not sure why that is.. but perception seems to have something to do with it. back in the 70's and 80's brick and mortar stores ragged about them quite frequently because of their no middle man approach. there really wasn't anything wrong with the product.. they were just in competition with brick and mortars.. who didn't like that.. so they bashed them. some still do.
i was looking to add another marshall bottom to my collection and the brick and mortar owner quoted me the price and said he'd sell me an old x-60 b head for one hundred dollars if i bought the marshall cab. i said "deal". honestly.. it's got a really decent sounding clean channel. the od channel doesn't have quite enough gain for hair metal.. but hey.. they make pedals for that.
i've also got a pre-wired pickguard with ap 11's in my mim strat. i wanted something on the vintage sounding side and i haven't been disappointed by the ap 11's. better sounding than the stock strat pups for sure.

 

[chunktone]

i'm not sure why that is.. but perception seems to have something to do with it. back in the 70's and 80's brick and mortar stores ragged about them quite frequently because of their no middle man approach. there really wasn't anything wrong with the product.. they were just in competition with brick and mortars.. who didn't like that.. so they bashed them. some still do.
i was looking to add another marshall bottom to my collection and the brick and mortar owner quoted me the price and said he'd sell me an old x-60 b head for one hundred dollars if i bought the marshall cab. i said "deal". honestly.. it's got a really decent sounding clean channel. the od channel doesn't have quite enough gain for hair metal.. but hey.. they make pedals for that.
i've also got a pre-wired pickguard with ap 11's in my mim strat. i wanted something on the vintage sounding side and i haven't been disappointed by the ap 11's. better sounding than the stock strat pups for sure.

I'm glad their pickups are working for you, but that's the only thing I don't care for on their guitars, but then again I just count on replacing pickups in all guitars I buy.

 

[muudrock]

I've owned at least a dozen Carvin guitars and still own 5. Never had an issue or a problem with quality, playability or sound. Great instruments. Always had good customer service when I needed it too.

Some of the earlier points are correct and I also think some people bash Carvin because some people have to justify spending big $$ on gear. It's a status thing. I say let em bash. It's crazy to get a guitar that is well made and spec'd out to your needs and is 1/2 the cost of similar instruments.

Case in point....

 

[1big1]

i didn't expect their pups to be on a level with fralin or joe barden.. etc.. but they were a definite improvement over the stock pups. price was also a factor. i couldn't justify big bucks going into an mim strat. that didn't make much sense. so yeah.. all thing considered they're working out just fine.

 

[blackba]

I don't have much experience with Carvin, the mail order thing for their guitars has always worried me. My buddy has 2 Carvins, one from the 80's and one from '08. The one from the 80's is great, low action, good resonance, very comfortable next. His new one was supposed to be a clone of the old one and just plays alot different. Its okay, but it has a wider neck (kind of like you find on shredder guitars). I am just not really impressed with the new one for the money. The 80's one is awesome....

 

[technomancer]

The only thing wrong with Carvin is that recently their QC has been a bit spotty. Aside from that their instruments are absolutely top notch. Oh and their resale value is really low for some reason.

Hmm... the resale value thing kind of sucks. But it makes me wonder what people think of their guitars...

And what have you heard about problems with QC?

Well let's see... I had an all walnut Holdsworth that I sent back because the glue joint between the neck and the body had glue smeared that had screwed up the finish (cosmetic, but not something I was willing to accept in a brand new guitar that was over $1000). I've also seen several Carvins in the last six months or so on forums that have come with dings in the fret board, bad fretwork, and IIRC one misaligned FR bridge. You can always return them for a refund, but it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence seeing that happen.

Don't get me wrong as I'm not bashing Carvin, I've seen and played a lot of gorgeous guitars from them, but it is something to take into consideration when placing an order.

Wow, thats not good. Thankfully I think everything checks out on mine (at least from what I have noticed).

Yeah... I do have to add that in hindsight I wish I would have take then IIRC $150 off and kept the Holdsworth H2 as it was an awesome player and sounded freaking amazing but I just had that niggling thing in the back of my head that resale would be low to begin with and with a visible flaw I'd really get hauled over the coals if I moved it. It was actually funny because I sent it back and it showed up in their catalog a month or two later.

Here's some pics of the guitar