- Unbeatable price/value electric guitar
- Extremely consistent build quality
- One of the longest standing entry level models by the company
- Can cover a lot of musical grounds
- I'd manufacture this with a hardtail bridge, if I were Jackson Guitars! :)
Hello there, back again with another detailed guitar review and test article! This time we will be looking at a killer guitar, the Jackson JS11 Dinky. First of all, believe me, even though it was quite a new model compared to the best-selling electric guitars in my country, it has been going crazy with sales and has just arrived in the top 5 list of the best-selling electric guitars for 13 years of data! As you will see and understand from the videos I will be providing here in this article, I spent tons of time with this model.
Table of Contents
Jackson JS11 Dinky
Both with the initial model and the second generation! First, let’s hear the first encounter with the guitar back in the old days! This one was a Jackson JS11 Dinky, Gloss White and a first-generation = Basswood body! Recorded with a Rode VideoMic Pro and a Marshall AVT50 amp + an old Boss SD-2 (Is this the best dirt pedal by Boss?) 
Sound Demo: Test Room – Basswood Body (no talking)
After huge demand for longer, detailed videos, we decided to go further and just play the thing as much as possible without talking. Again, it’s a Jackson JS11 Dinky, Gloss White, first-generation = Basswood body, but this time recorded with a Marshall JVM205C valve amp + Shure SM57 microphone.
Sound Demo Short: Long Format Basswood Body (no talking)
After we started making this kind of (boring for some) videos, people reacted really well because they were fed up with people just talking and listing the tech specs that anyone could find on the internet. Also, they were fed up with reviews in which the best players played an entry-level guitar, with great guitar tones. So I think they did not find it honest. If you want to start playing the guitar and also like heavier music styles, you can not go wrong with this one! If I had to buy an entry-level guitar for myself or someone else, I would just pick one of these up and play! 
I don’t even remember a faulty product out of hundreds of JS11s we had sold. They were all top-notch and did not come with a single problem at all! Kudos to Jackson Guitars! From those days, we started selling these like hotcakes. Every day, 2-3 or 4; we even had a couple of them in our hands at all times, so I came up with an idea that we could take a photo of 5 JS11s and post it as Jackson 5 🙂 Here’s Michael Jackson’s Black or White within a concept of JS11. Nice huh? 🙂
We didn’t really have a big stock of guitars, as it was really a tight workspace. We would mostly stock accessories, or items that are smaller in volume, size, price and high popularity. This would ensure that we could always ship these items very fast and restock them if needed. For electric guitars, we would only stock a few entry-level models by some popular manufacturers such as Squier.
So, this photo above is basically evidence of how hot these used to be back in 2015s. We had 5 of them on the same day!
Sound Demo: Black or White?
In 2015 (I guess), Jackson stated that they would be using poplar wood in the body section, and also there would be two more colours: metallic red and metallic blue. 
So in order to be honest, we just recorded another video of the same Jackson JS11 Dinky, Metallic Red, second-generation = poplar body! Here you are, Jackson JS11 Dinky review (no talking)!
Sound Demo: Long Format – Poplar Body (no talking)
Tech Specs
| Jackson JS11 | Tech Specs |
|---|---|
| Construction | Double Cutaway, Bolt-on |
| Body | Poplar or Basswood |
| Fretboard | Rosewood or Amaranth |
| Nut Width | 42.8mm |
| Neck | Maple Neck |
| Radius | 304.8mm |
| Frets | 22 Jumbo Frets |
| Pickups | 2 Jackson High Output Humbucker |
| Bridge | 2 Point Fulcrum Trem |
| Tuners | Diecast tuners |
| Finishes | Click here to search for available finishes |
*As you will notice on various websites, it might be stated as basswood or poplar. But as far as I know, they started using poplar around mid-2015 and declared this. Depending on the current stock of any retailer, you will have a poplar or basswood body. So I would check the serial number that’s printed on the carton box and find out how old the guitar is.
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Also, Jackson has fantastic packaging, and they spend loads of material to even pack these entry-level guitars! If you buy one online, you’ll be having a hard time opening the cartons! As this was one of the best-selling instruments ever, I had the chance to test these consistently almost every day for a very, very long time. Believe me, we couldn’t find any problems with the build quality. It was always consistent and almost ready to play right out of the box!
I don’t think the body wood change made a lot of difference. I’m more into Stratocaster-style specs, which feature an alder body. But poplar was also great. One thing, though, in time, the company started using different fretboard materials. So, just like I mentioned many times in my blog posts, the ones I’m talking about there all featured the pretty dark rosewood boards in the golden age of affordable instruments!
These days, it comes with an amaranth fretboard. I never tried one, but I believe it’s just as good as the affordable rosewood they used to use on the JS11 Dinky guitars. 
Pricing & Availability
Jackson JS11 Dinky has stood the test of time! It’s been actively manufactured by Jackson Guitars for more than a decade! With the extended colour options and current poplar body models, I believe you don’t need to look for another guitar if you are into shred guitar!
Check out Jackson JS11 Dinky guitars on Thomann here
Although you may not find hundreds of used JS11 Dinky guitars (which is a good sign!), sometimes there are JS11 Dinky series guitars listed on Reverb as used items. Please pay attention to the specs, as some will come with rosewood, and some with amaranth boards.
Check out Jackson JS11 Dinky guitars on Reverb here
Last but not least, you may still purchase Jackson JS32 Dinky series guitars on Amazon. I know that’s surprising for some, but sometimes guitar companies make their products available on Amazon as much as they do on the actual online music stores.
Check out Jackson JS11 Dinky guitars on Amazon here
Hope this has been a helpful review. If you have any questions, please don’t be a stranger and post them below! I am always up for assisting you with your musical instruments and accessories needs! Thanks for visiting my blog, and I will hopefully see you in the next review!
