Rap Hat
the:pawn.project
Well... After much debate, I'm leaning more towards having a Carvin DC800 built for me, and a DC7X built for my brother... Thoughts?
I'm a big fan of my DC800 and think it's an excellent guitar for the money. I have it tuned to drop E with a .076-.010 set and it works fine; intonates perfectly, has great action and above all sounds great even with the stock pickups. But, if it's your only 8 you might find the pickups lacking. They're high output and pretty bassy so keep that in mind re: the final cost. M8s are a good replacement, but for all-around awesome tone without breaking the bank I'd suggest the DActivators. I have them in an Agile and haven't yet run into a situation where their tone didn't work for a song.
I'd highly recommend getting it with a tung oiled neck and SS frets - the tung oil makes the neck super smooth and easy to play, with almost no stickiness like you'd find on gloss or satin, while the SS frets give it a longer lifespan before dressings are needed.