I've been playing guitar on and off for 25+ years and was wondering if a 7 string would be my kind of thing. This is the perfect instrument to try it out, at an affordable price with decent enough quality. Of course you can expect some problems at this price point, but I was surprised by how minor and manageable they are.
I only found one chip in the finish on the back, which is negligible. One ferule was protruding a bit, which needed a couple of taps to be put back in place. The strings it came with were too light, but I ordered some power slinkies with it anyway. And the frets were a bit dull, some even a bit corroded. All of these things are minor issues and easily fixed with a bit of TLC.
I discovered the worst problem however while polishing the frets: a sub-standard fret job. Some frets were leveled, but not crowned, giving a flat, unpolished surface. This even resulted in one dead spot on the 7th string at the 12th fret, which couldn't be polished or intonated. This will require a leveling and crowning job in the future, so it's not a quick fix. However this is not a deal breaker, the guitar is still very usable and payable.
Overall these sort of problems are to be expected at this price and I am still amazed at the value for money. With a little effort this quickly transforms from a decent enough to a good instruments. This guitar makes me wish entry-level instruments had this kind of quality back in the 90's.
