Fake AlilExpress Dean/Washburn ML Style Gutiars

[CravingAlpaca43]

Was looking at getting a Dean/Washburn ML, but the price of them are crazy and especially for my location. My best option seems to be these fake ML style guitars. Wondering if anyone had any experience with these rigs and how did it go? Do they play well or is it just plain junk?

[Bizman62]

Back in the day when I didn't build my own guitars it might have been tempting to buy one directly from China. But the Internet was still young and there were no e-shops for ordinary people. I heard about a guy who had ordered a bunch of guitars with his friends and they were asked to pay an old debt that wasn't involved to the shipping by any means, else the container would be sunk into the sea! But as said, that was long before PayPal and other mechanics that keep your money safe until the goods have arrived.

At the same time our local guitar shop boasted that the unbranded guitars he had for sale were actually the same as some established brand names and/or some imaginary brand names and the much lower price tag was because there was absolutely no name on them. The shopkeeper has a such a reputation that half of his marketing speech is fake information and the other half is heavily dubious. But truth is those guitars were very playable without any strikingly visible flaws.

There's quite recent reviews about some $100 guitars of an unknown brand and the reviewers seem to be happily surprised about the playability right from the box. Looking under the hood they all agree that the electronics aren't from the top shelf but they work and can easily be replaced if/when needed. Same goes with the tuners and other hardware. For a home user they may well work forever, on tour even the best guitars require maintenance between gigs.

Another thing to bear in mind is that some reputable guitar vendors do a full setup - fret leveling, crowning and polishing along plus nut adjusting and intonating - for every guitar they sell, including high priced boutique instruments. So if you know how to do that you can get a very nice guitar quite inexpensively.

All that said, you can also get a lemon. But the aforementioned safety mechanics should allow for getting your money back if the product is clearly defect.