Jackson Dinky Arch Top JS22-7 DKA HT Guitar

So I’ll start by saying I’ve played guitar for about 15 years, so I know my way around the instrument at least moderately well.

I’ll start with the positives, first being it looks gorgeous. Nice matte black finish with black hardware, and the corner inlays on the frets look so awesome. The tone and volume knobs are very sturdy and dont crackle when adjusting, and the three-way pickup switch is the same. The pickups are pretty high output, so they’re great for metal; however, they do seem to be lacking when it comes to mid tones and a little with high tones, so some replacements might be needed depending on preference. Lastly the price is unbeatable, $160 for this is a steal.

Now the negatives. The scale length is very long, like crazy long. I’ve joked with my friends about this guitar being built like a bass, but I really do mean it. Most of the lower frets I can fit two fingers into comfortably, and I have larger hands. This makes playing some things that span 5 or even 4 frets apart a lot more difficult. The tuning pegs arent the tightest or most responsive, I find myself having to turn them quite a bit to make small adjustments. The 11th fret looks like it was scratched by something pretty bad leaving a pretty deep gouge in it I wasn’t able to get rid of completely even after trying to sand it out. The first fret isn’t fully flush with the fretboard which may require either hammering it in all the way, or a full refret job to fix. There was also some dried glue on the first fret and on the side of the steel, I was able to clean it up with a razor blade. A few of the fret ends hang over just a bit but they’re sharp and need to be filed down. By far the worst issue is the input jacks ground wire wasn’t soldered correctly leading to a loud buzz when playing with even moderate distortion. Most of these issues are easily fixable by taking it to a guitar tech/ luthier, which honestly you should do with any new guitar unless you know how to work on it yourself, and the rest are just preferences.

All in all, I think this is a great guitar for beginners, people on a budget who want to try out a 7 string, or people who want a cheap guitar to try to upgrade with new hardware, pickups, ect.

Mine came with a bridge looking like someone played around with it in the factory and actually did a proper set up. Intonation was spot on. No fret buzz. Nice wide thin neck. The finish is a beautiful matte black. The tuners are smooth and work well enough, but that is one of two points that you can tell why it’s only 200 dollars. They work, but not as well as really nice tuners. They by no means feel or look cheap though. The other point that proves out the price of this guitar is the pick ups. They are fairly high output humbuckers with decent tone, but the individual strings don’t ring out with as much clarity when playing chords as though would with some higher end options that cost more than this entire guitar. You can get some really nice tones out of it and it in no way limits you as a guitarist. Most listeners would likely not be able to notice the difference. The clean tones are not bad but not anything special either. The tone and volume work really well and are very smooth and responsive with the pickups and make for a very versatile playing experience. I actually find myself playing some extended scale blues licks with a slightly dirty clean tone. The lower notes ring out pretty well, but I expect a much better experience when I change them out with a thicker gauge.

To sum things up. This is a nice guitar. Just no bells and whistles. I expect these extended range (7 or 8 string)guitars to be more and more the standard for getting into playing modern metal. There isn’t much you can’t do with this guitar. Unless you need a whammy bar.

the guitar itself has a pretty great balance setup with the pin positions, very little neck dive as far as it goes
the neck shape and feel I can honestly say its totally worth it!! i have stayed away from 7 string guitars as i had a Ibanez Ax7221 and boy the neck on that guitar was a wide D as opposed to a small D or small C which this one has, it makes an amazing difference and it feels comfortable to the point that I actually want to play it!, ive been going for drop A tuning, bear in mind you will have to invest in some thicker gague strings as the stock ones get a bit sloppy if you tune down like that.

the pickups themselves is nothing much to expect for this price range, then again I was only playing with amp and onboard OD, with some decent EQ and pedals this should still sound pretty dang good, I still would consider this guitar with some mid-high end pickups to haul you a long way if you want to consider this for gigging, i can say its worth every cent!

Currently I am picking guitar up again as i have not played for a solid 4 years and i can genuinely say i am having a pain free experience playing with this guitar 🙂

get it! you will definitely not regret it!

weight wise its not feeling too bad at all, not sure if its because i’m picking up the gym again but i usually have a struggle for guitars that have some weight , some back issues and this one doesnt feel too bad at all, have not played 2+ hours in a single session so far but all in all i consider this feels lighter than most guitars ive had

there are a few cosmetic scuffs which i have not bothered to go about cleaning up, beside fret marker 24 there are a few white marks which looks like some sort of small impact on the part, i’ll see what i can do to get rid of those

and on the face of fret 1 there are whitish streams, not 100% sure what its from, but looks chalk like, no major issue and I honestly forget its there, but when i sit down to do a full maintnence check up on the guitar I will take care of it

Está funcionando bien y se siente muy ligero y cómodo de tocar