DST-100S 39 Inch Full Size Electric Guitar Kit Solid Body Sunburst, Beginner Starter, with Amplifier, Bag, Capo, Strap, String, Tuner, Cable, Picks | Solid Body Sunburst, Beginner Starter, with Amplifier, Bag, Capo, Strap, String, Tuner, Cable, Picks

The guitar Taking a chance on an unknown company can bring joy or sadness. Sometimes it’ll bring plenty of either, and on a rare occasion both. I’m happy to say that Donner is bringing joy with their Standard Series. Though I’ll be honest right off the bat; they saved money in the finish work. What I mean by that is there’s some small (I couldn’t even properly photograph them) blemishes in the wood, and a spot on the upper horn where something hit the finish at the factory (which is photographed). The wood blemishes are all small and what I like to think of as freckles. Personally I like it, a lot. The matching though, for what appears to be a 5-piece body is really, really good. Doing a sunburst on this cheap a guitar is a bold move and I’d say it’s executed better then I’d expect. Besides a few bits that are too small to warrant the cost of a refinish it’s done really well. Of course the other cost-cutting area was in the fretwork. They’re sharp. Not unplayably so, and to be fair to Donner it’s a lot easier for a customer to file their frets (this should be included in a good professional setup anyway) than it is to say replace a shoddy input jack, or bad pickups. From here things only get better. It plays, sounds, and feels just like an HSS Strat. It’s definitely on the bright side, and the humbucker is pretty hot but things do sound very good and decidedly Fenderish. You won’t see people plugging their ears if you pull this out at a gig. The neck finish is a beautifully smooth satin, and the rosewood fingerboard is nice and thick. The factory setup is very playable, the tuners hold a tuning quite well and appear to be an area where money was spent, which is smart. The quality of the tuners, bridge, and electronics do seem to be pretty close to instruments costing much more. It even holds it’s tune reasonably well if you use the whammy bar a reasonable amount. It won’t hold if you’re divebombing like it’s a Floyd Rose but if you just add some vibrato here and there and tune up after the song it’s really not bad at all. It seems pretty clear to me that they knew where to cut cost (small finish and wood blemishes, fretwork) and where to invest (electronics, tuners, great wood grain matching on the front, hardware) and it adds up to an impressively passable guitar for most guitarists. For less then a Squier guitar of any sort you could buy this whole pack and pay for a pro setup and have something just as good. That’s a pretty big win if you ask me. And this is just personal taste but I like the gold logo and headstock shape. It’s a handsome Strat that doesn’t try to deviate wildly from the classic formula. The Amp This thing is small and has no right to sound as good as it does. For me this is the highlight of the pack right here. For a beginner this is way better then the awful Squier amp I started with. It’s not very loud but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! There’s enough volume for a personal jam, an aux-in and headphone out. So not only can you jam with it, it can also be a portable speaker! The distortion is great too. Flip a switch on the back and you’ll find something that ranges from gritty to gnarly. While there’s not a lot of tonal variety in the amp it’s a very good rock/blues sort of tone and again miles better then what you’d expect from a plastic amp that can fit in a gig bag and charge off your phone’s charger. It also makes the possibilities kind of endless. Camping, playing in a field under the moonlight, rocking out on a boat or in the backyard, busking in the busy streets, and so on. It’s honestly worth a standalone purchase and is going to stay in my arsenal until the day it dies. Very few pieces of gear get that luxury. The Case I wish it opened all the way so it could open up like a book. Instead you have to slide your guitar in and out like you would in a laptop sleeve. The padding is decent though. There’s comfy shoulder straps, and a handle that’s attached to both sides. While it’s slightly less convenient to use then some gig bags there’s a much much smaller chance that a zipper failure would ever occur and if it did your guitar is probably going to stay put. So it does its job quite well. And let’s put it this way, I’ve had guitars costing 2-3x this price come with no gig-bag or at best one that’s comparable in quality, with the only exception being the Gibson Les Paul Junior I once bought. It cost 4x what this whole rig costs, but the gig bag was one of the nicest I’ve come across. Usually you just get what amounts to a fancy plastic bag with starter guitars so I’m very glad they included a quality gig bag that you can actually use for gigs. Accessories Everything here is decent. Honestly the value here seems to exceed the price. Nothing is particularly special but to get everything you’ve got here separately could eat up half the price of the guitar. Throw in a good case, portable amp, and a whole guitar and it does seem to be a great value. In Conclusion Interestingly enough this kit actually hits a pretty large audience. For a beginner this is an absolutely perfect kit with everything they’ll need. The guitar is a strat through and through. It plays like one, it looks like one, and it sounds like one. While the fret edges being sharp is a detriment to any player it’s really livable if you’re not a shredder. Not only that but fret filing is super easy to do. With such a low price tag this guitar also would work well for someone wanting to learn how to do proper setup and maintenance of a guitar. Modding may be a little tricky but everything appears to be sized similarly to a Fender/Squier Strat. It also fits the working musician very well. As it needs minimal setup work out of the box, sounds good, comes with a battery-powered amp that can be used for busking, and at this price who cares if a drunk dancer knocks it off the side of the stage at a gig? They called it the Standard Series and to us musicians those words mean something. They mean this is the guitar that you can just grab off the shelf and use in any situation. It may not be the best of the range but it’s going to be good in all cases. Outside the fret edges and the natural flaws of a Strat this does that. Is it better then an American or Mexican Fender? No, but it’ll happily compete with any guitar in its price range and will give some of the slightly more expensive instruments a run for their money. If it were priced higher I’d probably knock a star off for its sharp frets but at this price and with all that’s included the fact that it’s so usable and that applies to everything included in the kit it just feels wrong to rate it at less then 5 stars.

Great guitar. Good value. Nice sound. Comes with accessories. Beginner friendly. Ready to play

My son loved it. He is a beginner

I bought this guitar to learn how to play during the pandemic, I have zero experience playing guitar so I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it. The guitar is very nicely packaged and included a lot of extra goodies such as a tuner, a capo, strings, picks, a bag, a strap, and a tiny amp. I'll start off on the amp, it is tiny, like portable Bluetooth speaker tiny, but it sounds pretty good both clean and with distortion. I'd use it for practice sessions but never for any performance. The rechargable battery makes it quite compelling so I don't need to find a power source. Good item. The guitar body is very high quality, the neck is made of an excellent wood, it is smooth and the frets are not sharp. The body is modeled after the Stratocaster and looks fantastic and just holding the guitar gives a high quality feel. Now for playing and sound, first thing you do, take the strings off, they are terrible, with these strings the intonation is way outta whack where anything above fret 12 is too flat. And don't use the extra strings in the box either, get a set of Made in USA strings like D'Addario Nickel Wound XL. Second is to change the tuning pegs, the ones included keep slipping and have way too much play before they move the string. I would find they lose their tuning quite often during play and would need retuning. The included nut is a soft plastic and too deep which I changed out for a Tusq nut. For looks, I decided to change the pickguard to a black pickguard. Be warned that the screw positions on this guitar are mostly DIFFERENT than a Fender Stratocaster, so be prepared to drill holes, but the pickup holes inside the body can accommodate two humbuckers if you want to upgrade those. After rubbing some lemon oil on the fretboard, the dark wood looks fantastic. Finally for my next upgrade, I want to upgrade the pickups to Alnico V pickups, the included ones are "fine", but they pick up a lot of interference during play and don't really give the best possible sound. If you plan on upgrading this guitar, be very careful when removing the neck. Pull upwards, not outwards or you could chip the finish. In the end I spent quite of bit of money and time in this "starter" guitar to upgrade it to my liking, but I learned a lot along the way, and the body is high quality that the upgrades will be meaningful.

This is my first electric guitar, and I’m transitioning from playing acoustic – the Donner DST-100 has been the perfect affordable option to get a feel for electric guitar. It comes as a complete package, which is awesome for beginners. You get spare strings, useful accessories, a decent gig bag, and even a mini amp if you’re just starting out. Personally, I use it for recording and plug it straight into my audio interface to run VST plugins, and it works great for that setup. The guitar cable that came with it is actually really solid – thick, durable, and no buzzing or noise issues, which was a nice surprise at this price point. Overall, it’s a fantastic value for anyone curious about electric guitar. It’s comfortable to play, sounds good, and gives you everything you need to get started without breaking the bank. Highly recommend!