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Dillion Guitars


lenster

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new to this forum. I'm xtremely curious about Dillion Guitars. They look like the real deal for the price, but i'm unable to play one as our local music stores don't sell them. would love to buy a les paul but like most of us can't afford one ( don't want to upset the missus9 . Anyone out there who owns or has played one could u please give me some feedback b4 i decide to buy one.looking at the DL650Q. Cheers Lenster

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Welcome!

 

I played a Korina Explorer copy at a friends shop, and it was a great guitar. Nice ft and finish, great neck, and the pickups were even reasonably good. He also had one of the discontinued V Series PRS types, that was a great player, with surprisingly good neck and fretwork, but wasnt as cleanly built.

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Originally posted by lenster

new to this forum. I'm xtremely curious about Dillion Guitars. They look like the real deal for the price, but i'm unable to play one as our local music stores don't sell them. would love to buy a les paul but like most of us can't afford one ( don't want to upset the missus9 . Anyone out there who owns or has played one could u please give me some feedback b4 i decide to buy one.looking at the DL650Q. Cheers Lenster

 

 

My friend has one a Dillon LP for sale at his shop here in NYC. I've played it quite a bit. My impression is pretty much the same as WarmMachineHead. I plays and sounds real nice, but it's very heavy, it's like a heavy old 70's LP.

 

BTW, I like the sharp looking cutaway, it gives it it's own look.

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I got a Dillion DR1500QX (PRS Copy) and it is one great guitar. The neck is very comfortable. The thing looks great, sounds great, and has a nice quality feel to it. I would not hesitate to get another Dillion. I got mine through Rich at Detour Music , he is a fellow forumite and gave me a great deal on the guitar http://www.detourms.com/. Even if it is not shown on the website, he can get it for you. He is a stand up guy to deal with, and will go the extra mile to ensure you are satisfied with the purchase.

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Hey there, I just bought a Dillion DR450 (without trying it) - paid $525 including HS case and shipping.

 

There are 3 vendors - Rich at Detourms, a guy who has no website (email info@dillionguitars.com to get in touch with him, he has a large stock of dillions), and Juniors music suppy. i bought mine from Juniors, but Rich gave me the best price (but had the worst color). The email guy had some rarer colors and stuff.

 

I've been playing the guitar fairly non-stop since I got it. Sounds great. The reviews are true, the guys who say the PU's are hot are right, it distorts fairly easily. Not a very nice clean sound. The bridge is not intonatable (but the intonation is perfect). The headstock is small and at first glance it does indeed have a somewhat "toyish" appearance (would like a lot nicer with a larger headstock, but inlay is nice). The body size is like a fender, if it was double cutaway. The fretboard is flat. The neck is U/C shaped (very much like my telecaster). The knobs spin easily, the selector switch is comfortable and easily changable during play. The guitar stays in tune fine.

 

Some probs with my guitar - I'm gonna try to give it some neck relief and tweak a bit. The action is not to my liking. Its fine, its within acceptable standards. But the low e-string has some buzz issues when I fret it at the very high and very low registers. The high e-string seems to fret out during bends If I don't set the action up higher. I'm comparing this all to the telecaster I've been using, which is set up perfectly.

The action on the Dillion bothered me when I first picked up the guitar, but it feels OK now after 2 days - the action is about 1.7mm, the A-string is higher because of the e-string buzz and the fixed bridge saddle. Its also because of the neck radius, I've been using the tele's convex fretboard and the flat board took a bit of getting used to, but the low e-string still has probs.

 

I'm thinking once I tweak the action, and put in some new PU's, it'll be fine, perfectly what I wanted. The PU's do leave something to be desired, its like the signal is being choked, held down, flattened, constricted, or whatever type of description. It doesn't "sing and ring". But with pedals, it sounds fine. But I'm still buying new PU's.

 

Not sure which model your looking at, but I figure the neck/action problem with my guitar isn't a standard thing (mine was made in 2004 so I suppose it had been sitting around for quite a while).

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Be careful when buying Dillions. Some have strange body woods (especially the lesser expensive ones). Some of the PRS copies are made of solid maple and some Strats and LP's made of chestnut (blasphemous, I say), among others. Make sure you check the body woods as well as the other specs.

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Originally posted by AtomHeartMother

Be careful when buying Dillions. Some have strange body woods (especially the lesser expensive ones). Some of the PRS copies are made of solid maple and some Strats and LP's made of chestnut (blasphemous, I say), among others. Make sure you check the body woods as well as the other specs.

 

 

I have the DS-100, Strat, since modded with Biltoft PUs and a Fender neck. It is now a great guitar - that's right I absolutely love that Chestnut body - extremely resonant w/ amazing tone. The tuners are excellent, the trem is excellent, electronics etc... However of the Korean guitars I have owned (still own four) the Dillion used the cheapest fretwire I've ever seen - you could see an indentation of windings on the first fret low E - and in two years of limited playing it needed a fret dress. But rather than go that route I opted for a neck change because I felt the Dillion neck was robbing the guitar of sustain and harmonic overtones. Well I thought right, the improvement in sound with the Fender neck is off the chart - more so than the pu change.

 

Chestnust is an excellent tonewood - I wish you could hear this thing now. But the original neck didn't look like the same type of wood as the Fender (advertised as maple). Just a friendly caveat.

 

PS It retails for $650 I believe, is that cheap for a Korean guitar?

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Originally posted by fretmonster



I have the DS-100, Strat, since modded with Biltoft PUs and a Fender neck. It is now a great guitar - that's right I absolutely love that Chestnut body - extremely resonant w/ amazing tone. The tuners are excellent, the trem is excellent, electronics etc... However of the Korean guitars I have owned (still own four) the Dillion used the cheapest fretwire I've ever seen - you could see an indentation of windings on the first fret low E - and in two years of limited playing it needed a fret dress. But rather than go that route I opted for a neck change because I felt the Dillion neck was robbing the guitar of sustain and harmonic overtones. Well I thought right, the improvement in sound with the Fender neck is off the chart - more so than the pu change.


Chestnust is an excellent tonewood - I wish you could hear this thing now. But the original neck didn't look like the same type of wood as the Fender (advertised as maple). Just a friendly caveat.


PS It retails for $650 I believe, is that cheap for a Korean guitar?

 

 

 

You paid $650 for it? For that price you could easily get a very nice used Fender MIA Standard. Do you have to guess what 99% of people would take?

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I didn't say I paid that much myself. At that price a used MIA would definitely be the better choice considering the Dillion's shortcomings. But the wood is not one of them. I believe they use chestnut on all their Strat copies and as I say it is a great tonewood for a Strat. Obviously I basically liked the guitar even before the mods. I had a Fender MIJ at one point and the Dillion played better and is a lot quieter. I still have less than $650 into this thing after mods and have a monster on a par IMO with my friends MIAs - it looks like new, sounds incredible and has a trem (Wilkinson design) I can actually use without putting the guitar out of tune.

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Originally posted by fretmonster

I didn't say I paid that much myself. At that price a used MIA would definitely be the better choice considering the Dillion's shortcomings. But the wood is not one of them. I believe they use chestnut on all their Strat copies and as I say it is a great tonewood for a Strat. Obviously I basically liked the guitar even before the mods. I had a Fender MIJ at one point and the Dillion played better and is a lot quieter. I still have less than $650 into this thing after mods and have a monster on a par IMO with my friends MIAs - it looks like new, sounds incredible and has a trem (Wilkinson design) I can actually use without putting the guitar out of tune.

 

 

 

Hmmm...With the Fender neck and VV pickups, it sounds like a good deal for being under $650.

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Originally posted by fretmonster




Chestnust is an excellent tonewood - I wish you could hear this thing now.

 

I have never heard of chestnut as being a tonewood. I searched all over the Internet and couldn't find anything about chestnut instruments of any kind.:confused:

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My local music store has them around $300, one is a PRS copy, another one is a PRS copy with snake? or dragon? inlay on the fretboard. The inlay looks real cheesy... I didn't plug them in tough, from acoustically playing I didn't really dig it much.

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