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Curious to know if any of yous have played a Carvin before, what your opinions are. I kinda want to splurge on a "high end" guitar. Plus, they make a lefty strat style with fixed bridge and humbuggies. DREAM GUITAR (I'm a basic bitch).

I do know they don't sell well, try to look for used ones if you wanna save some money. I've heard positive things.

The neck on my big V bass [through neck] is a carvin and the workmanship on it is really nice which made the whole project go a lot faster over all

They are excellent instruments - I wouldn't play one because I like what I like, but for what it's worth, I've played a few and they all felt fantastic!

Caevin makes good stuff that is undervalued, used is the way to go but if you can't find what you want, spending on new is worth it. just be aware of the resale devaluation.

Cool, thanks for the input everybody! ILF is always my final say in such hard decisions. I understand the used sentiment, but I figured I'd order new to get the options I want. I went ahead and put in an order for a seafoam green DC127 :3. I'm insanely excited. First time buying a guitar that costs more than $200.

EDIT: Had to cancel the Carvin order. An emergency bicycle purchase was needed instead :|

When I was in high school, I would spend hours looking through the catalogs. I would try to come up with the most fully-featured and versatile thing I could think of with some kind of odd-color transparent burst paint.
Whenever I see one in person, I think it looks kind of goofy.

my dad has one, plays like fuckin buttah.

Solid if you can find one used as mentioned.

Resale of poop in the summer sun though.

Yep, used saves major bucks. Their less custom-up-ordered stuff tends to sound better, since all that maple, the ebony boards, neck-thru, and lately stainless steel frets add up to a kinda stiff, bright sound.

I haven't bothered to try any of their stuff in over 15 years, since when I did the feel was not for me. I should try again, but I'd try to find some Carvins local to try out before even thinking about blowing money on a custom order.

my only problem with carvin (this was years ago) was their pickups. They might have changed. If I had to by a tiny guitar, it'd be a Carvin. They're wonderful and semi-under-the-radar

I missed this thread last time around, but I played a Carvin LB-75 as my main bass for almost 10 years. It had stacked 'buckers and sounded great. It definitely had a more hi-fi sound to it, but not sterile.

Carvins are very high-quality instruments if you go through the custom shop. The reason the resale value isn't very high is because it is not very expensive to get them built exactly to your specs, and since they can be bought new relatively inexpensively, people don't tend to buy used as much. Thus, the resale value of them suffers. But yeah they are nothing to scoff at by any means.

Resale is also a case of "Nobody pays a premium for a custom instrument they didn't design" - applies to cars, guns, other custom stuff too.

I've played several Carvins...absolutely top-notch build and wood quality.
Have a scroll down their Facebook page.
Don't buy one to resell, spec it exactly like you want it, buy it to keep. They have an amazing return policy, too.