Recording King RD-318 Adirondack

Prachtige, geweldig spelende en klinkende gitaar maar ik heb vast een maandagochtend model gekregen want de kwaliteit liet te wensen over. De gitaar kwam met een veel te hoge, meer dan 3 mm, actie op de hoge E 12e fret ipv de beloofde 2 mm en bij het afstellen van de nek onstond lang voordat de juiste actie bereikt was fret buzz in meerdere snaren, itt bij mijn andere drie dreadnoughts. Van bovenaf gezien lijkt er lichte een twist in de nek te zitten, wat het probleem zou kunnen verklaren. Verder zat er een klein plekje in de lak op de zijkant van de nek, precies waar je de hele tijd naar kijkt. Ook zat de pickguard er scheef op, met de onderkant maar een maar mm van de brug af. Tot slot zaten sommige dots niet precies in het midden van de hals. Het geluid van de gitaar is zoals je overal leest zeker even goed als dat van de veel duurdere merken maar de kwaliteit moet wel beter, in elk van bij het exemplaar dat ik heb ontvangen en geretourneerd.

The guitar has a good weight to it, the finish is really well done, the neck does take a while to get used to, because it is a V shaped neck, actually kind of a deep V, you can actually feel the edge when picking it up. The Adirondack top is superb, I do not know what happened to the wood in 30 years, but I guess the global warming had something to do with it, because it sounds a lot more older and dried out. The back and sides mahogany is a another really good choice, the wood is really well selected. I had the luck to receive one from a batch that actually has a flamed mahogany look to it, which is quite rare. The guitar feels so balanced, the highs are crisp and the lows are well defined. It immediately became a favourite in my collection (Martins, Freshmans, Taylors), no doubt. I highly recommend buying one, even if not tried before. This was my case anyway, it was a blind buy, especially because of the Adirondack 30 years old top and it was totally worth it.
Bonus: I actually own another RK guitar, the RD-T16 which is another good instrument, has Adirondack torrefied top with laminated mahogany back and sides. You can immediately sense the difference between them, the RD-T16 feels drier and uncompressed and unbalanced, has a more vintage vibe to it, and the harmonics aren't really there. It can be a little loud sometimes as well. You would expect them to sound close to each other but really there are major differences. So, if you are undecided between the two, pick the RD-318, the price/quality ratio is definitely in your favour! Cheers

This guitar sounds great. Very responsive. Great woody tone. Pretty loud. Dynamic. I really like how the headstock looks. I also own the RO-328 and I think the laquer is to thick on both. Had been better with a different thinner finish. The tuners on this guitar are sub standard. The RO-328 have open butterbean Grover tuners which are pretty good, but this one have some cheaper knock offs. But they do the job.
The guitar was set up pretty bad. The string hight was more than 1 mm higher on the 12th fret than «standard» and high on the nut. Had to tighten the neck, file down both the bridge and the nut. When that was done it became a different guitar. So easy to play. I guess you have to expect things like this when you get a guitar this cheap with specs like this. They have to cut corners some places. For me it seems like the corners/expenses were cut on laquer, setup, tuners and quality control. Great value for the money.