By Carlos Martin Schwab
Donner is a Chinese manufacturer of musical instruments for beginners, gear, and accessories for musicians. Born in 2012, it has expanded globally by opening warehouses in Europe and USA. This electric guitar, presented at NAMM 2022, has created many expectations by bringing together features of expensive guitars at an affordable price. You can find many reviews of this guitar, but…The Devil is in the Details, right?
Donner – DST-152
This guitar is part of the Donner Seeker series that includes 3 different guitars sharing a lot of characteristics: the Donner DST-152, the DST-200, and the DST-400, reviewed by Guitar International HERE. The DST-152 is a classic Stratocaster model with a poplar body.
The Donner DST-152 test model has a black high gloss finish, a neck made of AAA Canadian maple with a satin finish and C-shaped profile, a 25.5” scale, and a classic Fender neck joint with plate (bolt-on construction). The maple fretboard has a 12“ radius, 22 medium jumbo frets, and black position marks. The headstock shows 18:1 ratio vintage-style split-head tuning machines (meaning that the string can be inserted into the well inside of the tuning peg, keeping the jagged edge of a clipped string safely away from the player’s hands) and 2 string trees.
This guitar has Alnico pickups in HSS configuration, a 3-ply color imitation tortoise pickguard (not so thin), and a standard 6-point tremolo system with a 3-ply back cover (not so thin). Removing it, the tremolo shows 3 springs and a pretty thick block made of cold-rolled steel that gives the instrument better clarity, sustain, and stability. The tremolo bar is screwed.
The guitar features a coil-split push/pull switch under the bridge tone knob that gives players the choice between the thicker, punchier sound of the bridge humbucker, or the brighter, clearer sound of a single-coil pickup in the bridge position activating only the humbucker upper coil. Added to the standard 5-way pickup selector switch, this gives guitarists 2 more tonal options to choose from, making this one of the most flexible guitars on the market in this price range.
AMAZON PURCHASE AVAILABLE HERE!
Before the test, I did the usual setup for new guitars: neck relief (not necessary in this case), strings action, intonation, tremolo lubrication (oil), and nut lubrication (graphite).
I needed to change the strings because the factory set (9-42) was really cheap and the guitar didn’t stay in tune. Thanks to the correct relief from factory, I was able to get great low-string action.
With its 7 pounds weight, the guitar feels like an expensive Fender Stratocaster. The neck is very comfortable, its satin finish is fast and doesn’t stop your hand. The fret fronts were polished, so no raspy sound from the strings and the fret ends are really smooth. The nut is made of plastic but there is no pinging sound using the tremolo bar.
The tremolo works as expected: using it smoothly, loses the tuning a little, affecting more the G string, and loses the tuning a lot in extreme use (you can lock it to avoid this).
The Alnico pickups in HSS configuration give a nice, clear, and articulate sound, being the neck pickup less fat than a Fender Stratocaster one. The humbucker is somewhat muddy and dark (something to upgrade if you don’t like its sound) but the split-coil works great.
It’s a great beginner/intermediate guitar, and the included accessories make it a great combo for beginners: gig bag with backpack straps, instrument cable, guitar strap, tremolo bar, a string set (no gauge indication, so I think it’s 9-42, the same as the factory strings), 4 guitar picks (2 x 0.46 mm and 2 x 0.71 mm), a plastic-made capo, 2 Allen keys for setup, a chromatic tuner, and a small practice amp, all of them of decent quality.
The 3W practice amp includes a rechargeable internal battery, 2 switchable channels (clean and distorted), minijack aux in, and minijack headphones out.
Swaps for upgrade: saddles, locking tuners, tremolo (or just lock it), and a hotter/brighter humbucker.
Price: $199.99 but goes down under $170 with the discount offered by the Donner on-line store.
Note: Donner provides products for review at no cost to reviewers.
