This is the third guitar I purchased this year - the other two being an EBMM JP15 and an Eastman SB57/n-BK - two radically different guitars... and then comes the Charvel whose price is ~50% of Eastman and ~25% of JP15. I'm merely stating this because Charvel can really hold its own compared to those two guitars. So, let's dive into the pros and cons...
The cons - fret job - fret crowning could've been done better. It's not as smooth as it should be, the frets are sticking a tiny bit from the fretboard, on the side. It's not a big deal and I definitely don't feel it when I'm playing but it should be noted as I consider this to be the biggest issue with the guitar. The other issue is the non-staggered locking tuners - had they used the staggered ones they could easily exclude the two string trees on the headstock. Not only would that look more pleasing to the eye, it would also give even more stability to tuning. I played the guitar way too little with the stock string trees to confirm that they're causing trouble - after all, they're pretty well engineered (not much contact surface which could cause friction) but since I picked up the rolling string trees I didn't bother - I exchanged them after a day or two. The rolling ones are a bit higher so they're effectively lowering the angle upon which the string is falling from the nut to the string tree and then the tuning maching itself. Less of an angle - less of a trouble ;-)
The pros - I was meaning to do the whole setup upon the arrival of the guitar (adjusting truss rod/neck, action, intonation) since that's something I'll usually do but lo and behold, after a long time I actually bought a guitar which was perfect out of the box. I can't say whose "fault" that is - Charvel's or Thomann's but either way, I was pleasantly surprised. The roasted neck is a fine piece of wood, Graph Tech TUSQ XL nut is cut and slotted perfectly and I absolutely love the neck heel - reaching the higher frets is effortless. Also, thumbs up for the neck's compound radius! The pickups were what drew me the most to this particular guitar. A set of Fishman Fluence Open Core CL HB Set will set you back 250€ - they're pretty hot when in humbucker mode but the option of modern and vintage voicing is great and useful. Add to that the option of splitting the coils and you're getting a big tonal palette to choose from. Although one might argue that this guitar is catering to the shredders, I'd say it covers a lot of ground tonally thanx to the Fishmans.
I picked the satin black finish and paired with the roasted maple neck it looks really nice.
I'd easily pay 200€ more if they put the staggered locking tuners and stainless steel frets on the guitar - that would make it a perfect package! I could go on and on but the bottom line is you're getting a lot of guitar for the price. I gave it five stars for the features and the sound, four stars for the build quality (the fret ends!) but overall, when taken into consideration how much it costs, it really deserves a five star rating.
