Specifications

List Price:
Factory Direct Price: $1,499.00

Originally published in Guitar World, February 2010

Carvin's California Single CS6 is one of the most attractive bargains in the high-end guitar market.

Carvin has been crafting superior instruments for more than 60 years, during which time it has achieved notoriety for its mixing consoles, pro audio equipment and Steve Vai Legacy amplifiers. Carvin has concentrated more on excellence in manufacturing than on designing and marketing a signature guitar, and as a result, its guitars, though gorgeous, have been largely uncelebrated.

The new Carvin California Single CS6 should help put the company’s guitar-building prowess in the proper light. The California Single is a flawless instrument, capable of competing with the most expensive and exclusive custom-made instruments from any manufacturer. Best of all, because Carvin sells direct, the CS6 sells for about half of what you’d pay in any store for a guitar of similar quality.

FEATURES

A body of select mahogany creates the CS6’s foundation of warmth, tonal depth and power. To enliven the instrument’s upper frequencies and attack, Carvin uses a thick slab of book-matched, carved 4A curly maple for the top and an ebony fretboard. The mahogany neck extends five inches into the body for sustain similar to a neck-through design, and the joint is contoured so that there is practically no neck heel. Even though the D-shaped neck is fairly beefy, the seemingly narrow width, comfortable shaping and 12-inch fretboard radius actually makes this a fast neck.

The strings pull through the body for greater resonance transfer, and hardware includes a Tune-o-matic-style bridge and Sperzel locking tuners. Carvin’s own custom-wound C22 pickups accent this guitar’s rich tonality, and the tone pot pulls up to split both pickups’ coils.

PERFORMANCE

Where so many mahogany-based guitars are dark and mellow, the California Single has an exciting top end. Bass weight is also significant and particularly well defined, thanks to the upper-frequency strength. But unlike the usual mahogany-bodied tone, the California Single’s midrange is not particularly pronounced. Metal and jazz devotees will love how the midrange does not interfere with note separation or wide interval runs, though vintage rock enthusiasts may need to use their amp’s midrange control for tone accentuation.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Carvin's California Single CS6 is one of the most attractive bargains in the high-end guitar market.

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