Product Review: Dean EVO XM Electric Guitar

The Dean EVO XM Electric Guitar has high end features for a low price. According to the specs given on Guitar Center's website, the Dean EVO XM is built with a solid basswood body, a maple neck, and rosewood fretboard. It has two black humbucker pickups and black sealed tuners. The guitar comes in two translucent colors, allowing for the wood grain to show through for a vintage aesthetic. The sleek look of black on natural wood-tones gives the guitar a custom look-as opposed to the stock-looking chrome hardware characteristic of most cheaper guitar models. However, when you look up close, the high end look is tarnished a little bit via the guitar's crude flat cutout body. The body is smooth and offers an intriguing silhouette characteristic of better known Les Paul guitars, but it is not contoured, leaving it a bit lifeless from certain angles.

The neck is smooth and offers easy playability. The bridge is also smooth and in a comfortable position for easy palm muting. Tuning pegs are responsive yet sturdy. The humbuckers don't offer extremely high output, but the Dean EVO XM features three-way selection, allowing for both humbuckers to be tapped into at the same time. Furthermore, the crisp tones more than make up for any lack of volume.

In terms of customization capabilities, the guitar is on the fence. On the one hand, it does not have a large cavity, so extra drilling and cutting is necessary before adding more pickups, knobs, or switches. On the other hand, the aforementioned flat surfacing of the guitar makes for easy scroll saw usage, allowing for new cavities to be cut easily with only minimal guitar modification experience. The wiring is standard for an HH three-way selector arrangement, so hooking up new electronics is fairly easy once the cavity expansion is completed.

Overall, the Dean EVO XM Electric Guitar offers a lot of rock for your buck. It is a good beginner guitar, as well as a nice project guitar for experienced players. Its look is sleek, its tone is ample, and its form is comfortable. With a MSRP of $210.00, and a typical retail price well below that, the Dean EVO XM is a good buy for any musician. For its great range and affordability, this guitar gets a solid 9 out of 10: quite an impressive score for any guitar, let alone a low cost one.

Sources:

Dean Guitars, EVO XM, Dean Guitars.

Guitar Center, Dean EVO XM Electric Guitar, Guitar Center.