The Donner DST-200 Designer Series is a Stratocaster-style upkeep electric guitar with beginners in mind.
This review will take a thorough squint at the DST-200 to requite you an idea of whether it may suit you or not.
If you’re a beginner or thinking well-nigh learning guitar, learn the part names of electric guitars in this guide surpassing reading this review.
This review is written with beginners in mind, so you don’t need to have an expert-level understanding of guitars to learn everything you need to know well-nigh this guitar.
Donner DST-200 Features
Here are the main features of the Donner DST-200:
- HSS pickup configuration
- 25.5″ scale length (learn well-nigh scale length here)
- Push-pull tone knob for split coil
- Poplar soul (pink or black)
- Maple C-shape bolt-on neck with satin finish (learn well-nigh neck shapes here)
- Perilla fretboard with 22 frets
- Vintage style synchronized tremolo
I’ll explain the whilom features and why they’re important to understand throughout this review.
The DST-200 is a Stratocaster-style guitar that comes in pink or woebegone as shown below:
Donner DST-200 Ease of Use
The soul of the DST-200 is made out of poplar and the neck is made out of maple with a Perilla fretboard.
Poplar is a soft hardwood and is found in a lot of upkeep guitars considering it’s unseemly and wontedly available.
The neck has a satin finish which feels smooth and easy to play with.
Once I tuned up the strings, I was surprised that both the whoopee height and the intonation were set up well from the factory.
Intonation is hands willowy on this type of bridge, but it was nice to see that it was set up properly. That’s one less thing a beginner needs to worry well-nigh when getting started.
If you don’t know well-nigh intonation, read this guide to understand why it’s important to set it up properly. Read the guide to learn how to trammels your guitar’s intonation and how to fix it if needed.
The vintage-style tuners felt fine to use and held the tuning fine. Keep in mind that when you get a new guitar, it may take some time for the new set of strings to settle, so it’s normal for the strings to fall out of tune as they stretch.
Once the strings on my DST-200 settled (new strings take time to stretch and hold tuning stability), the tuning held fine for normal playing.
The tuners felt firm and I didn’t notice any slippage or inconsistencies between them.
The underpass on the Donner DST-200 is a vintage-style synchronized tremolo.
This ways if you nail the included tremolo arm (shown below), you can push it lanugo and it will lower the pitch of the notes you play.
Depending on the style of music you play, you may never use the tremolo arm. Some styles of music occasionally use it, while other styles use it all the time.
The increasingly you use a tremolo arm to dip and swoop notes or chords, the increasingly the tuning will fall out of tune. Even higher-end guitars with high-quality tremolos can have issues with tuning stability, so don’t expect the tremolo on a upkeep guitar to have unconfined tuning stability.
As I expected, the strings on the DST-200 fell out of tune with summery tremolo use. This style of tremolo just doesn’t offer good tuning stability.
The tremolo is perfectly fine for learning purposes. You can learn how to use the tremolo arm to dip and swoop notes, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you plan on performing live and need to play a lot of parts that involve the tremolo arm.
The action height was comfortably low without causing any buzzing frets. It was nice to see that one of the tags on the guitar headstock was a string whoopee ruler, so if you want to retread the action, you could hands measure the height.
The DST-200 came with a strap, a good-quality siphon bag, a set of Allen keys, and a guitar cable.
For a ~$200 guitar, I was surprised with the quality of the accessories – expressly the guitar cable. The 10ft (3m) subscription is hands the weightier quality subscription I have overly seen come with a guitar.
Even guitars with double or triple the price often come with unseemly plastic cables, so it was a nice surprise to see these sturdy metal ends and the soft rubber finger of the cable.
As you can see from the whilom photo, the subscription comes with one straight end and one right-angle end.
Donner DST-200 Sound
The Donner DST-200 comes in an HSS pickup configuration. HSS stands for Humbucker – Single whorl – Single coil.
In the unelevated photo, you can see that the humbucker pickup (the double pickup) is closest to the underpass (on the right). The other two pickups are tabbed single coils.
Most Stratocaster-style guitars come with a single whorl pickup instead of a humbucker in the underpass position.
The wholesomeness of the HSS configuration is that you can get a punchier/tighter tone when playing with upper proceeds for rhythm parts. Humbuckers produce less unwanted noise and in the underpass position, they can produce unconfined rhythm tones.
If you play rock, metal, or similar styles that use distortion, you will likely prefer the sound of humbuckers compared to single coils in the underpass position.
A surprising full-length with the Donner DST-200 that usually isn’t found on upkeep guitars is the worthiness to ‘split’ the humbucker.
The second tone knob is a ‘push/pull’ knob, which ways you can pull it up (as shown below). When you pull the knob up, it ‘splits’ the humbucker so it sounds like a typical single whorl pickup.
The knob was tough to pull up and I had to slide my fingernails under the marrow to grip it. I expect it will loosen up over time, but it does seem quite tight compared to other push/pull knobs I have on my guitars.
This full-length ways you can hands transpiration when and withal between a humbucker sound and a single whorl sound in the underpass position.
The unelevated diagram from the Donner website shows how this push-pull function works with the variegated pickup positions (yes, they spelled Humbucker wrong):
This push/pull full-length gives the DST-200 an uneaten uplift in versatility. You can use the humbucker for tight rock/metal rhythm parts, or you can pull the knob and get a typical Strat sound.
The overall quality of the tones produced by these pickups was far largest than I expected. I have played a lot of upkeep guitars from students over the years and some upkeep pickups can sound nasty.
The single whorl pickups in the DST-200 weren’t noisy and produced barely any hum compared to most of the other upkeep guitars I own. They produced increasingly high-end than I prefer, but without adjusting the EQ on my amp, I was happy with them.
If you’re a beginner on a tight budget, it would be nonflexible to find a new guitar with largest quality pickups at this price. They’re perfectly fine for beginners and can sound quite good when combined with a good amp and pedals.
Keep in mind that some pickups you can buy forfeit increasingly than this guitar, so there’s little point comparing the pickups in a $2000 guitar with the pickups in this guitar.
Donner DST-200 Reliability and Quality
Entry-level or upkeep electric guitars are usually hit-or-miss in terms of quality. Some manufacturers unceasingly produce bad-quality guitars, while others produce unseemly guitars that hands stand up versus entry-level guitars from big-name brands.
I had never played a Donner guitar before, so it was very interesting to put the DST-200 to the test.
Keep in mind that every guitar is different, so my wits with this guitar may not be the same as other DST-200 guitars for sale.
A worldwide issue found with lower-priced guitars is the fret ends tend to stick out or finger sharp. If you run your finger withal the whet of a fretboard, you shouldn’t finger any sharp edges from the frets.
The unelevated photo shows the quality of the fret ends on the DST-200.
You can see that the end of the fret is rounded off nicely and doesn’t stick out. Almost all of the frets were as smooth as the fret in the whilom photo.
A few of the upper frets had a rough end on the side with the side dot markers (shown below). But considering those fret ends are over the soul of the guitar, you would never finger them.
The neck was moreover very straight once tuned to pitch. Not buzzing frets at all while the whoopee was comfortably low.
For a upkeep guitar, that’s a big win. Learn increasingly well-nigh this and why it’s important in my guide on truss rods.
The paint job was perfectly fine and I didn’t find any issues or imperfections on the body. The only issue was the paint on the headstock (covered later).
The nut in the DST-200 is plastic, which could wilt an issue in the future depending on how rough you are with your guitars.
Plastic nuts aren’t platonic for tone or durability, but if you take superintendency of your guitar and are shielding when restringing it, you shouldn’t have any issues such as wearing lanugo the string slots.
The Donner DST-200 has a bolt-on neck and you can learn well-nigh the different types of neck joints in this guide.
Bolt-on necks are standard for Stratocaster-style guitars and the main issue to squint for when ownership a bolt-on neck is if there is a gap between the neck and the body. Or if you’re ownership a secondhand guitar, squint for cracks in the soul near the neck joint.
The DST-200 I reviewed has a nice tight fit on both sides. This should be expected with any guitar made today as CNC manufacturing has significantly improved the quality of upkeep and mid-level guitars (many high-end guitars are still handmade).
There was a slight issue with the placement of the bridge. It looks like it wasn’t mounted perfectly straight.
In the unelevated photo, take a squint at each string and where it sits on the string saddles.
The strings on the left sit in the middle of the saddle (where they should be), but the strings on the right have slid off-center and sit to the left.
Because the vintage-style saddles don’t have grooves for the strings to sit on, they’re self-ruling to move virtually the saddle.
This hasn’t caused any issues yet and I’m not sure whether it will rationalization an issue in the future, but it’s a reminder to squint closely at upkeep guitars for possible issues.
Everything else with this guitar has been of good quality, so it was a bit disappointing to see this issue.
The only other issue I could find was that one of the machine heads didn’t sit well-to-do with the headstock as shown below. I’ll update this review if it overly causes issues with tuning stability.
You can moreover see some slight imperfections with the headstock paint on the edge. The headstock wasn’t properly masked during painting, so some paint bled through the edge.
Apart from these two issues, I couldn’t find any problems or quality concerns. When you consider the price of this guitar, that’s impressive.
I’ll update this review in the future if there are any issues that come up.
Overall Impression of the Donner DST-200
Overall, the Donner DST-200 is a good quality option for beginners or intermediate guitarists wanting a Stratocaster-style guitar on a tight budget.
The HSS pickup configuration and the push/pull full-length gives you wangle to a nice range of tones.
While there were minor quality issues with the underpass placement and tuner on the guitar I reviewed, I was happily surprised by the overall quality of the fretwork and hardware.
Some guitarists will hate the finger of the super-light strings that come installed on the guitar, while other guitarists (especially beginners) will like how light they finger under your fingers. You can hands transpiration to a variegated string gauge if you don’t like the finger of them.
Check out the Donner DST-200 on the Donner website here.
Donner DST-200 Pros
- Great build quality and features for the price
- Comfortable and straight neck
- Action height and intonation were perfect from the factory
- HSS pickup configuration with split whorl gives nice range of tones
- Good quality accessories
Donner DST-200 Cons
- Tremolo tuning stability
- Many guitarists won’t like the super-light gauge strings installed
- The pickups are brighter than increasingly expensive guitars that may not suit everyone
Who is the Donner DST-200 for?
If you’re a beginner or thinking well-nigh learning guitar on a budget, the Donner DST-200 gives you a good quality guitar at the lowest price I would consider.
The HSS pickup configuration and the worthiness to split the humbucker requite you wangle to a nice range of tones.
Single whorl pickups can be unconfined for wipe tones as well as momentum tones, so if you like the idea of playing virtually with variegated tones, I recommend ownership a guitar with an HSS configuration.
I’d have no problem recommending this guitar to a lot of my students. The only students I wouldn’t recommend this for are those who play heavy or nonflexible styles of music and who aren’t interested in versatility. Sometimes you want a guitar that only does one type of tone really well. If the type of tone you get from single whorl pickups doesn’t suit you, there are other upkeep guitars that will suit you better.
If you play heavy styles of music with lots of distortion or overdrive, have a think well-nigh whether you will prefer a guitar with a HH configuration (two humbuckers).
The HSS configuration works unconfined for many styles of music, but this isn’t a metal guitar. Check out my guide for metal guitars to see what to squint for. The guide is worth reading for any heavy or nonflexible styles of music – not just metal.
How to Get the Most Out of the Donner DST-200
Here are some things you can do to get the most out of the Donner DST-200 or any similar upkeep guitar.
- Give the strings a good wipe down surpassing you play (mine were slightly dirty/oily)
- Check and retread intonation
- Check and retread action height
- Use a string gauge that suits you best
Reading the whilom guides and pursuit the translating can help you get largest performance out of any guitar.
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