DAngelico Excel DC XT Iced Tea Quilt

DAngelico Excel DC XT Iced Tea Quilt review

The DAngelico Excel DC XT Iced Tea Quilt is a semi-hollow electric guitar with a center block, laminated maple body, and a pair of USA-made Seymour Duncan '59 humbuckers. Listed at $1,499, it was available starting in September 2022. The specifications describe a guitar built around conventional dual-humbucker controls, with coil splitting added to its tone controls. No customer reviews are available, so this assessment is based solely on the listed construction and components.

The center block distinguishes this model from a fully hollow guitar. It runs through the body beneath the top and provides a solid central structure, while the surrounding body remains semi-hollow. That layout gives the instrument a different construction from a solid-body guitar without making it a fully hollow design. The listed details do not specify the block's material or dimensions, so its effect on weight, resonance, or feedback cannot be quantified here.

Body, neck, and playing dimensions

The top, back, and sides are laminated maple, finished in Iced Tea Quilt. The quilted appearance is part of the stated finish description; the specifications do not identify a separate wood species or construction method for a figured veneer. Five-ply binding outlines the body, and a five-ply tortoiseshell pickguard adds a contrasting detail. Gold-plated hardware completes the stated visual treatment.

The neck is a three-piece maple, walnut, and maple construction, paired with a rosewood fingerboard. Its narrow C profile is a specific neck shape rather than a measurement of overall thickness, and the provided information does not give neck depth at the first or twelfth fret. The 43 mm nut width indicates the width at the end of the fingerboard nearest the headstock.

The guitar has a 628 mm scale, equivalent to about 24.7 inches, and 22 frets. These dimensions give a useful reference when comparing it with other electric guitars, but they do not establish string tension or feel on their own. String gauge, setup, fret size, and action are not listed. The fingerboard's split-block inlays are made from mother-of-pearl and abalone, providing a prominent visual marker along the neck.

Pickups and controls

Two USA-made Seymour Duncan '59 humbuckers, each with a gold cover, form the pickup set. The controls include separate volume and tone knobs for the two pickups, along with a three-way selector switch. This arrangement provides the familiar neck, combined, and bridge pickup positions, while retaining individual level and tone adjustment for each pickup.

The two tone controls have coil-splitting functionality. Splitting a humbucker reduces its active coil arrangement, offering a different pickup configuration from the full humbucker mode. The specifications do not say whether the split is activated by pulling the knobs, pushing them, or using another control action, so buyers should confirm the precise operation before purchase. They also do not state the resulting output level or provide audio samples that would establish how closely the split sounds resemble a dedicated single-coil pickup.

An EG2P jack socket is specified, along with a D'Angelico stopbar tailpiece. There is no tremolo system. The stopbar arrangement is a fixed-tailpiece design, which keeps the listed hardware straightforward, though the available information does not specify the bridge model or its adjustment range.

Hardware, case, and buying considerations

The tuning machines are Grover 150 Imperial units, and the hardware is gold-plated. A case is included; a separate gig bag is not. The listing identifies one guitar per sales unit and gives item number 552152. Together, these details make the included case and hardware easy to verify when comparing the package with other instruments at a similar price.

The strongest specification-led reasons to consider this model are its semi-hollow center-block construction, laminated maple body, three-piece neck, and dual Seymour Duncan humbuckers with coil-splitting tone controls. The 628 mm scale, 43 mm nut, and 22-fret layout provide concrete dimensions for players checking fit against their preferences. The decorative appointments, including split-block inlays, multi-ply binding, a tortoiseshell pickguard, and gold-plated hardware, are also clearly specified.

There are limits to what the listing can establish. It gives no weight, neck-depth measurements, fret dimensions, bridge model, factory setup details, or information about the coil-split switching mechanism. Those details matter when evaluating comfort and setup, and should be checked directly with a retailer if they affect the decision. Based on the supplied specifications, the Excel DC XT is a feature-rich semi-hollow guitar with a defined control layout and an included case, but claims about its sound, handling, or build quality beyond those facts would require hands-on testing.