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So I’ve been really tempted to pick up one of the EVH Striped Series imports, ever since they came out more than a year ago. I briefly tried a couple at a local dealer, and was really impressed, especially considering the price. I recently got a great deal on one – waaaayyy below the MAP that so many dealers seem to refuse to budge on - so just had to finally pull the trigger. Since I already own one of the Charvel USA EVH Art Series, I knew going into this it was going to result in a celebrity cage match: two guitars enter, only one may leave! LOL On to the details, apologies in advance for the long-winded review…
Looks
Check the photos, the EVH Striped looks great. The graphic is done really well. I can see and feel a couple of transition lines between paint colors/areas, but that’s more due to a thin-skinned old school approach to the finish. I assume EVH spec’d this for better body resonance, as he did the same on the Charvels. The graphics aren’t exactly the same, but similar enough.
The maple neck on the EVH is whiter than on the Charvel, but that could entirely be due to the Charvel having aged a bit with time. I assume the EVH will eventually “yellow mellow” with age, too. The face of the headstock on the Charvel is clearcoated with poly, while the EVH has a slightly duller sheen – probably satin, I’m guessing. Not a big deal, but the Charvel looks just a bit classier because of this.
I must admit my first reaction to the EVH logo on the face of a strat headstock was that it looked poor. It’s slowly growing on me, though. And I now think this has less to do with the logo style itself, and more to do with the simple fact that my brain is just wired to expect the logo to be angled to line up with the head’s lower notch, like Charvel and Fender have always done. That said, I’ve always disliked the “EVH Art” logo in the ball of the Charvel’s headstock. Again, not a big deal, but IMHO it’s just a bit too much cheese.
Sound
The specs say the EVH’s pickup is a Wolfgang. I don’t know if it’s same as on a USA Wolfie, but it sounds different to me. Better actually. It’s much more heavily weighted towards old school “brown sound” than EVH’s more modern, saturated tone. Think brown sound + more high gain. The Charvel’s PU is great, too. Not sure if it’s true, but I heard these were intended to be a “transitional” prototype between the old school brown and modern Wolfgang tones. I wouldn’t call the Charvel “modern” like that but, IMHO, it seems slightly more modern to my ears than the EVH. Both are very cool, so chalk this one up to preferences. Pretty close, but I prefer old school EVH.
Body resonance, tone, sustain? If I’m totally honest with myself, I have to say the two guitars are pretty much equals in those regards. Given my experience with other imports, this is an area I expected to hear a difference. So it downright shocks me that the EVH is that good here.
Playability
Here’s where you start to experience a difference. The necks are extremely similar. Same 12” to 16” compound radius fretboard, both are quartersawn maple. The back profiles feel nearly the same, too. To my hand, the Charvel might also be a hair thinner on the high E side of the neck, but that could totally be due to minor hand-finishing variances. Slick polished oil finish on both feels great. I believe the Charvel has a slightly slimmer 1 & 5/8ths nut, though. The EVH is 1 & 11/16ths. Otherwise, the only differences seem to be the EVH’s two-piece neck (separate fretboard, no skunk stripe), truss rod adjustment wheel at the notch, different tuners (EVH logo’d Gotohs?), old school Floyd nut mounted through-the-neck, and the fret sizes.
The Charvel has a slightly thinner/lower fret wire size. It’s not like a KV’s smaller “medium jumbos”, which are more squared off in profile shape. The EVH’s is a true rounded full-sized jumbo, which I prefer. Basically the same as you’ll see on a USA Jackson or Charvel. The Charvel EVH Art frets are the same shape and profile, but think just shrunk to a smaller 80%-ish size of the EVH’s. Not the same as a standard USA Charvel jumbo.
Out of the box, the set-up on the EVH was sub-par. I spent a half hour or so redoing the Floyd’s tension and action. After that, it plays just killer now. Low action throughout the neck, no buzzing at all, great sustain. The intonation still needs work, though. Not bad, per se, but my ears can definitely hear some differences in chords at different spots on the neck. The EVH’s fret work is pretty damn good, too. Level and straight throughout, nicely rounded, slick and smooth. However, my particular EVH came out of the box with some sharp feeling fret sides. The ones I tried out locally didn’t have this issue, so I suspect this is due to slight wood shrinkage from the dealer’s area where I bought it from. Also, it was worse right out of the box than it is now a few days later. So the wood appears to be slowly adjusting back. I’ll let the guitar settle more, but will eventually have a local guy redo the intonation and smooth out the fret sides. I’ve experienced this same issue on few of my USA Jacksons and Charvels, too, though – so I’ve grown to expect it on a guitar every now and then. Every piece of wood is slightly different, I suppose.
Also, the Floyds are different. The Charvel has a Schaller-MIG Original Floyd. My understanding is the EVH’s is a MIK Floyd 1000 model, just with an EVH-logo’d base plate. I know others think differently, but IMHO the Floyd 1000 is a very close second to the MIG Original Floyd. That said, there is an issue with the Floyd and D-tuna. There’s not enough travel in the low E fine tuner to engage/disengage the D-tuna, unless the fine tuner is left nearly all the way up. I’m not a big drop-D player, so not a big deal to me. Not sure, but it appear the issue may be due to the EVH Floyd having a steeper angle to the back plate near the fine tuners. To my eye, that appears to give less travel between the string lock screw and the finer tuners. Shimming the saddle for a steeper angle might help this, though.
So here, except for fret size and D-tuna I’ve got to give the props to the Charvel. However, once I have the intonation and frets shaved, the EVH will be a near equal.
Summary
So is the EVH Striped Series as good as the Charvel? Nope, the Charvel is the better guitar overall, higher quality. Then again, when new the better part of ten years ago, the Charvel was priced at 3x what the EVH is currently sold for. Do you get 3x the quality difference between these two? IMHO, not even remotely close. Actually, if I had to peg this to a “number” difference I’d say the EVH is, say, 90% as good as the Charvel. And that’ll improve, once I get the set-up and fret ends taken care of. Admittedly, putting a number on it like that is kind of a goofy way to compare guitars. But hopefully you guys get what I mean.
I’ve got to hand it to EVH – they’ve put out a very solid, high quality product. The EVH Striped Series is a great guitar, all around. Not “great for a MIM import” – it’s just plain great. The most amazing part is the price point they’re doing it at. Quite frankly, it’s downright scary how good it is for the money. The quality of this guitar is fighting well above its weight class.
Looks
Check the photos, the EVH Striped looks great. The graphic is done really well. I can see and feel a couple of transition lines between paint colors/areas, but that’s more due to a thin-skinned old school approach to the finish. I assume EVH spec’d this for better body resonance, as he did the same on the Charvels. The graphics aren’t exactly the same, but similar enough.
The maple neck on the EVH is whiter than on the Charvel, but that could entirely be due to the Charvel having aged a bit with time. I assume the EVH will eventually “yellow mellow” with age, too. The face of the headstock on the Charvel is clearcoated with poly, while the EVH has a slightly duller sheen – probably satin, I’m guessing. Not a big deal, but the Charvel looks just a bit classier because of this.
I must admit my first reaction to the EVH logo on the face of a strat headstock was that it looked poor. It’s slowly growing on me, though. And I now think this has less to do with the logo style itself, and more to do with the simple fact that my brain is just wired to expect the logo to be angled to line up with the head’s lower notch, like Charvel and Fender have always done. That said, I’ve always disliked the “EVH Art” logo in the ball of the Charvel’s headstock. Again, not a big deal, but IMHO it’s just a bit too much cheese.
Sound
The specs say the EVH’s pickup is a Wolfgang. I don’t know if it’s same as on a USA Wolfie, but it sounds different to me. Better actually. It’s much more heavily weighted towards old school “brown sound” than EVH’s more modern, saturated tone. Think brown sound + more high gain. The Charvel’s PU is great, too. Not sure if it’s true, but I heard these were intended to be a “transitional” prototype between the old school brown and modern Wolfgang tones. I wouldn’t call the Charvel “modern” like that but, IMHO, it seems slightly more modern to my ears than the EVH. Both are very cool, so chalk this one up to preferences. Pretty close, but I prefer old school EVH.
Body resonance, tone, sustain? If I’m totally honest with myself, I have to say the two guitars are pretty much equals in those regards. Given my experience with other imports, this is an area I expected to hear a difference. So it downright shocks me that the EVH is that good here.
Playability
Here’s where you start to experience a difference. The necks are extremely similar. Same 12” to 16” compound radius fretboard, both are quartersawn maple. The back profiles feel nearly the same, too. To my hand, the Charvel might also be a hair thinner on the high E side of the neck, but that could totally be due to minor hand-finishing variances. Slick polished oil finish on both feels great. I believe the Charvel has a slightly slimmer 1 & 5/8ths nut, though. The EVH is 1 & 11/16ths. Otherwise, the only differences seem to be the EVH’s two-piece neck (separate fretboard, no skunk stripe), truss rod adjustment wheel at the notch, different tuners (EVH logo’d Gotohs?), old school Floyd nut mounted through-the-neck, and the fret sizes.
The Charvel has a slightly thinner/lower fret wire size. It’s not like a KV’s smaller “medium jumbos”, which are more squared off in profile shape. The EVH’s is a true rounded full-sized jumbo, which I prefer. Basically the same as you’ll see on a USA Jackson or Charvel. The Charvel EVH Art frets are the same shape and profile, but think just shrunk to a smaller 80%-ish size of the EVH’s. Not the same as a standard USA Charvel jumbo.
Out of the box, the set-up on the EVH was sub-par. I spent a half hour or so redoing the Floyd’s tension and action. After that, it plays just killer now. Low action throughout the neck, no buzzing at all, great sustain. The intonation still needs work, though. Not bad, per se, but my ears can definitely hear some differences in chords at different spots on the neck. The EVH’s fret work is pretty damn good, too. Level and straight throughout, nicely rounded, slick and smooth. However, my particular EVH came out of the box with some sharp feeling fret sides. The ones I tried out locally didn’t have this issue, so I suspect this is due to slight wood shrinkage from the dealer’s area where I bought it from. Also, it was worse right out of the box than it is now a few days later. So the wood appears to be slowly adjusting back. I’ll let the guitar settle more, but will eventually have a local guy redo the intonation and smooth out the fret sides. I’ve experienced this same issue on few of my USA Jacksons and Charvels, too, though – so I’ve grown to expect it on a guitar every now and then. Every piece of wood is slightly different, I suppose.
Also, the Floyds are different. The Charvel has a Schaller-MIG Original Floyd. My understanding is the EVH’s is a MIK Floyd 1000 model, just with an EVH-logo’d base plate. I know others think differently, but IMHO the Floyd 1000 is a very close second to the MIG Original Floyd. That said, there is an issue with the Floyd and D-tuna. There’s not enough travel in the low E fine tuner to engage/disengage the D-tuna, unless the fine tuner is left nearly all the way up. I’m not a big drop-D player, so not a big deal to me. Not sure, but it appear the issue may be due to the EVH Floyd having a steeper angle to the back plate near the fine tuners. To my eye, that appears to give less travel between the string lock screw and the finer tuners. Shimming the saddle for a steeper angle might help this, though.
So here, except for fret size and D-tuna I’ve got to give the props to the Charvel. However, once I have the intonation and frets shaved, the EVH will be a near equal.
Summary
So is the EVH Striped Series as good as the Charvel? Nope, the Charvel is the better guitar overall, higher quality. Then again, when new the better part of ten years ago, the Charvel was priced at 3x what the EVH is currently sold for. Do you get 3x the quality difference between these two? IMHO, not even remotely close. Actually, if I had to peg this to a “number” difference I’d say the EVH is, say, 90% as good as the Charvel. And that’ll improve, once I get the set-up and fret ends taken care of. Admittedly, putting a number on it like that is kind of a goofy way to compare guitars. But hopefully you guys get what I mean.
I’ve got to hand it to EVH – they’ve put out a very solid, high quality product. The EVH Striped Series is a great guitar, all around. Not “great for a MIM import” – it’s just plain great. The most amazing part is the price point they’re doing it at. Quite frankly, it’s downright scary how good it is for the money. The quality of this guitar is fighting well above its weight class.
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