I have owned Carvin amps & guitars since the mid-1970's...born and raised in Escondido, CA. where Carvin was located, on 1155 Industrial Avenue, before shutting down in the 90's and where now Keisel is now located, although their guitars are the ugliest made, just awful. The Carvin name originally the combo of the names of sons Carson & Kevin - hence, Carvin. Spent countless hundreds of hours inside the original Carvin showroom on Industrial Ave. in Escondido, and even worked there one summer constructing speaker cabinets. All of my original Carbon equipment - all of which I still own - was purchased brand-new at the factory by me. Guitars & amps. Original VTX-100 "Bi-Channel" gold-faced 100-watt amp tops & V412-C 4-12' speaker cabs w/ Celestions with the black steel grating, DC-150 and my glorious & beautiful bird's-eye maple 1980 DC-160 Stereo double-cutaway guitar, in fact the exact guitar that appears in the blue print-Carvin ads that appeared in all the trade magazines like Guitar Player and the like, the one with the other guitars behind it - that DC-160 is mine. Picked the wood blank for it personally from Neal Taylor at Carvin from which it was made. Also had one of the first 3 koa DC-160's that were made, as well as the first series of the X-60 black-faced 1-12' combos introduced in 1981. I go way back with Carvin Manufacturing and exclusively would only use their equipment for years when I was still touring the circuit in the late-70's - early 80's. Never owned any of the Vai-series Legacy's, although I respect Steve tremendously. Frank Zappa was an endorser at the time, though not officially the whole line, because he didn't really care for the guitars - but Frank loved the M-22's in all his Gibson Les Paula, and later the pick-ups that theyade for his Strats. Frank exclusively used the X-100 tops for years, as well as some outboard gear and he commissioned two of the largest sound desks for his home studio & remote truck, which were used on some of his live Zappa band albums at that time. Carving was a great thing in their time, and it's sad it's all that history of technology has been pitched aside for just those ugly f'n Keisel guitars. But hey - time marches on, to each his own....at least people enjoy them - that's what important.