Kozmos KST-S1CL S1 Classic / Soloking MS-1 Classic MKII Review
- Barış Şahin
- 6 minutes ago
- 13 min read
I’ve been keeping a close eye on Soloking guitars for quite some time now. They seem to offer instruments that look remarkably high-end—at least visually—while staying within very reasonable price ranges. Naturally, this kept fueling my curiosity more and more.
Over time, I started noticing a few things that made me suspect Soloking might be producing some of the Kozmos models that are manufactured for Zuhal Music here in Turkiye (though I’m not entirely sure which models). When I asked Soloking directly, they neither confirmed nor denied it. But after seeing the guitar featured in this review, I thought: Alright, this goes far beyond “just a resemblance.” Check the photos i supply below...
By sheer luck, I was able to get this guitar second-hand at a very low cost. And since I’m fully convinced that it’s essentially the same instrument as the Soloking MS-1 Classic, you can consider this review to apply equally to both the Kozmos KST-S1CL S1 Classic and the Soloking MS-1 Classic MKII.
PS: I also take pride in having played a small role in helping them find a dealer in my country. :)
Meet the Guitar…
The guitar was shipped to me from another city wrapped only in bubble wrap. When I saw it, I was honestly shocked. We all know how some couriers treat packages, and I’m sure the image of brutally smashed flight cases with broken guitars inside has crossed your mind. There wasn’t even a cardboard box this time. The previous owner had literally just wrapped the guitar in bubble wrap and sent it off—and this is a roasted maple–neck guitar, which is even more prone to brittle fractures due to the thermal treatment.
By some miracle, it arrived without even a single scratch. Hard to believe? That’s what i said! A miracle! A gold star to the Kozmos/Soloking team for that one. :) And greetings to all the guitars that manage to snap their headstocks from the slightest fall! :)
The moment I unwrapped the guitar, what I saw was actually quite satisfying. Naturally, as someone who has built, repaired, and modified guitars for years, my eyes immediately went searching for flaws—or rather, for things that could be improved. And of course, I found a few.
First of all, while the headstock design on the Soloking version looks fantastic, the one on the Kozmos version is… not great. Honestly, it’s pretty ugly. Even the much-debated James Tyler headstock looks far, far, far better than this in my opinion. But, well—tastes and colors, as they say.
It was also obvious that the guitar had never seen any maintenance whatsoever. The strings hadn’t even been changed. Frets were way too dirty. Since this is completely independent of the manufacturer, it’s not something I factor into my evaluation. Still, I have to say that I genuinely liked what I saw when I first opened the bubblewrap.
Let's start by looking at the technical specifications first
· Alder body
· Modern D Neck Shape with Canadian Roasted Maple
· Roasted Maple Fingerboard
· Contoured Body for easy upper fret access and maximum playing comfort
· 22 Jumbo Stainless Steel Frets
· Custom HSS Alnico Pickups Set with Coil Split Switch and chrome covered humbucker
· Soloking Two Point Modern Tremolo System with Screw In Handle
· Spoke Wheel Truss Rod Adjustment for easy access
· Custom Locking Tuners
· 1 Volume + 1 Tone + 5 Way Switch
· Pearloid White Pickguard
The color of the guitar is "Pewter Grey Metallic" which which looks much better in live than the photos. I can say it's applied at a premium level. Some flaws that you might see in some mid-range guitars or even some U.S.-made guitars are not present in this guitar, at least.
When you Touch It
I can say the guitar feels quite comfortable both when playing seated and standing. After all, its foundation is a Stratocaster—and the Stratocaster is a very ergonomic design. This one is no different. The neck–body joint allows very easy access to the upper frets, and the guitar is well-balanced both sitting and standing, with no signs of neck dive. The body has a normal weight: not light, but definitely not heavy either.
Everything I’ve mentioned so far comes from visual inspection and briefly holding the guitar in my hands, because the strings and frets were so oxidized that it was practically unplayable. Once I got to the stage of installing new strings and cleaning it up, some additional modifications and corrections inevitably had to be brought into play—because despite what it claims on paper, the guitar had some fairly serious issues.
So I’ll start by talking about those problems first, and only then move on to evaluating the guitar in a meaningful way.
Excessive string height: When the guitar first arrived, I assumed it simply needed a truss rod adjustment. But after checking it with a straightedge, I realized the neck was actually quite straight—and even needed a touch more relief. Since the tremolo isn’t recessed, lowering it further wasn’t an option. So I did the only reasonable thing: I removed the neck and slipped a small, rectangular piece cut from a credit card between the two neck screws closest to the body. In other words, I shimmed the neck to give it some angle. And not with a thin piece of cardboard or veneer—a full credit-card thickness. The result? A silky, effortless action. Thankfully, the frets didn’t need any leveling at all—not even a minor touch. Which brings me to the real question: How did a guitar with string height this extreme make it into my hands like this? Apparently, according to a few “little birds,” these guitars are sold in shops with similarly sky-high string action. This is where both the manufacturer and the distributor share responsibility. And if other Soloking models also come set up like this, I absolutely wouldn’t buy one online—I’d only buy it from a physical store where I can confirm the setup is reasonable. Very simple. This is a serious demerit for both Soloking or Kozmos.
Tuning machines: On paper, the guitar comes with excellent hardware. For someone like me—who considers locking tuners essential—that’s a great feature. In real life, though? Things don’t always go as expected. Yes, the guitar does have locking tuners, but the material quality is so low that tuning stability isn’t great (There’s another reason for this as well, but I’ll get to that in the next section). The tuner for the B and high e string in particular was so bad that the locking posts eventually snapped, one by one. I simply threw it out and replaced it with a spare tuners I had lying around—another AliExpress products yet functions well. It works for now, but if I come across a good deal, I definitely plan to replace the entire set with something of proper quality.
Mediocre string trees: The guitar comes with two string trees, and both are mediocre in quality. I removed the one for the lower strings entirely. For the e and B strings, I replaced it with a high-quality Gotoh string tree. After that, I also added a bit of graphite from a pencil to the nut slots, and the tuning stability improved noticeably. After all, friction plays a major role in tuning stability, doesn’t it?
Headstock: This part of my criticism applies specifically to the Kozmos version. Soloking’s own headstocks actually look great—not quite Strat-like, not fully modern either, but visually very appealing. The Kozmos one, on the other hand… in my opinion, it is very, very, very, very ugly. There’s nothing technically wrong with it, but the more I bonded with the guitar, the more I developed an antipathy toward its headstock. Eventually, luthier Ercan Bilir gave it a little “circumcision,” and that’s how it reached its current, much better appearance. I no longer have any visual complaints. :)
Of course, I’ve made a few other modifications as well, but they’re not like the ones I’ve mentioned so far. What I’ve described up to this point can be classified as ‘necessities,’ whereas the others are more like ‘preferences’.
Up to this point, you’ve read quite a few negative remarks—or rather, observations. These were issues that I’ve already fixed myself. In other words, they were things you can sort out at home without a professional workshop or specialized tools (headstock work being the exception). So while they were annoying, they weren’t exactly catastrophic problems. If everything I’ve written so far has given the impression that the guitar is terrible(?) and that I somehow don’t like it(?), then let’s break that idea right here.
After making those small adjustments I mentioned, I was finally able to evaluate the guitar—and its real potential—in a realistic way. First of all, this instrument is very much a modern fat strat. Not a toy that merely pretends to be one, but the real deal. Let’s start with the neck, because the biggest shortcoming of many online review sites and those oh-so-famous YouTube videos (aside from sincerity and honesty…) is that they give almost no information about the neck profile—one of the most decisive factors in whether you bond with a guitar or not.
The neck is made of quartersawn Canadian maple. In terms of feel, I can sum it up as ‘very Fender-ish.’ It sits somewhere between a modern C and a modern D profile, similar to many current Fender Strat necks, but leaning a bit more toward the D side. Not thick, not thin—just a solid, well-balanced shape that fits the hand nicely. Even though the catalog describes it as a ‘Modern D,’ the shoulders aren’t as pronounced or sharp. I don’t think it will disappoint players who prefer chunky necks or those who prefer very slim ones. I did, however, find myself wishing the fretboard edges were rolled. Not essential, and very easy to do, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t remind me of some Mexican-made Strats. I like rounded fretboard edges—there’s a certain broken-in feel to them that I enjoy. The fretboard itself is roasted maple, but roasted to a different degree than the neck, so there’s a slight visual contrast between them. I don’t mind it much, but I do think a nice rosewood fretboard would have suited the guitar better. Maybe even Makassar ebony. Not a dealbreaker, though. The radius is 9.5 inches, which again places it firmly in modern Fender territory. In my opinion, 9.5–10 inches is a great middle ground between modern and vintage feel. The frets are jumbo—wide and revatively tall. I’ll take caliper measurements and note the actual values later. The neck thickness is listed as 21 mm at the first fret and 22.5 mm at the 12th. If I divide the neck into three segments—1st to around the 7th fret, 7th to around the 12th–14th, and then up to the 22nd—the neck feels comfortable in all three zones. Thanks to the well-designed neck joint, access to the 22nd fret is very comfortable, and bending up there is relatively easier. Moreover,fretboard has elegant abalone inlays. Seems fine.
BTW, i will repeat myself but, i don’t understand why guitar manufacturers don’t provide more detailed information about their necks. Considering that the neck is such a critical part of playability, comfort, and even tone, the lack of detail is a major shortcoming, in my opinion. This applies to all of us, doesn’t it? We might love the looks of a guitar and desire it for that reason. We might love its tone and want those sounds in our recordings. But if the neck profile doesn’t feel right in our hands—or if we can’t adapt to it—the consequences can be serious, ranging from replacing the neck to selling the guitar altogether. Some neck profiles are simply more specific, and while they may feel perfect to certain players, they can feel constricting to others. Ibanez’s Wizard, for example—a very thin D-shaped profile—is something you either love or hate. Same with the R7 Gibson Les Paul profile: if you like thick necks, it’s heaven; if you don’t, it’s absolute hell. But I don’t think you’ll have that kind of issue with my Soloking/Kozmos. It’s a very versatile, all-around profile
Width of frets: 2.96mm
Heigh of frets: 1.53mm
I love roasted maple necks. I can't say what they will look like in 10 or 25 years. But today, they look very chic, and generally speaking, they are tonally better than non-roasted ones because they undergo better drying due to roasting.
Nut is looking like bone. Not sure but it seems like bone very much. Surprisingly there is no big issue with the nut. Slots are opened&dressed good, the height of them are good.
The frets came very well set up. I'm not sure if it's just my luck, but there are no issues with any of the frets. No choking, no dead notes on bends, no fret buzz. It's clean. When you slide your hand along the neck, you won’t feel sharpness. Very well dressed.
The tuning pegs are not functioning well and they are unfortunately terrible. They must be great on paper but in reality? They suck! I need to replace them all when i can afford.
The craftsmanship of the nut is one of the first and most important things I pay attention to. In the case of the Soloking/Kozmos, I quite liked the craftsmanship. The angles, widths, and depths of the slots on the nut good.
The essence tone of the guitar is neutral. No spesific frequency group dominates to others. Neck position is clear not dull or muddy.
Now, let's talk about the pickups... First, let's look at the measurements I took
Original pickups:
Neck: DCR: 6.91K L: 2,18H C: -31.73nF Magnetic Flux Density: 800-1030G
Middle: DCR: 6.65K L: 2.15H C: -33,6nF Magnetic Flux Density: 890-1040G
Bridge: Sorry to lost the paper i had taken notes
The pickups were one of the features I was most curious about. The catalog specs are accurate: all of them use Alnico 5, and the single coils are true single coils. Tonally, they’re neither outstanding nor bad—very middle-of-the-road pickups. The singles use Alnico 5 magnets with hand-beveled edges, and I examined the bridge humbucker in depth after removing it.
However, I can’t say I liked the ~10-12K DCR humbucker very much. It sounded a bit too bright for my taste. When I inspected it, I saw that it was wound with thinner wire (not AWG 42) and that the anorexic coils were evenly matched. Some of the construction details—like the type of tape used—reminded me a bit of Fleor pickups. Final note, it had a brass cover on it at first. Since I already had a Seymour Duncan SSL-1 neck and SSL-2 middle at home, I decided to evaluate those first and write a review on them. For the bridge position, I had plenty of options, but I wanted to try something different, so I went with a modified Ibanez V7 (Korean)—this time with an Alnico 4 magnet. The result was excellent once again.
You can see the real life measurements of underwound SSL-1 and SSL-2 HERE
Modded Ibanez V7
Magnet – Polished Alnico 4
Advertised DCR: 9 K Ohm (Series)
Measured DCR: 9.40 K Ohm (Series)
Measured DCR: 4,67 K Ohm (Slug Coil)
Inductance @100Hz: 5,54 H (Series)
Inductance @100Hz: 2,22 H (Slug Coil)
Measured C: -31,3 nF (Series)/ -59,3nF (Slug Coil)
Output: Moderate
Wire Gauge: AWG42
Gauss: 240G screw, 250G slug (measured at top center of D&G pole pieces)
I’ve already shared my detailed thoughts on the underwound SSL-1 and SSL-2 before, as well as on the Ibanez V7 with an A2 magnet. As for the V7 with an A4 magnet, I should say once again that I found it very successful. This time, however, it doesn’t have as much midrange as the A2 version. Instead, there’s a more balanced lift across all frequency ranges. Still, it wouldn’t be wrong to say the mids remain slightly pronounced—so it’s definitely not a mid-scooped pickup. The lows are tighter, and the highs are sharper (whereas the A2 version was rounder). The mids are present but not as honky as with the A2 magnet. For an HSS fat strat, I think this is an excellent match.
With this pickup configuration, the guitar can easily cover a very wide range of genres—and do so very successfully. Rock, blues, even classic heavy metal… it’s an excellent fit, especially for that ‘80s hard’n heavy style.
Moving on to the hardware… Let’s start with the tremolo. The exact same unit is available on AliExpress—I actually have three more of them here, and it’s literally identical. Is it bad? Not at all. It genuinely gets the job done. Maybe at some point I’ll have a brass tremolo block made and give it a try. Who knows… maybe that extra bit of midrange will work in my favor, hmm? Pickguard? White pearloid. Once in a time, a friend from a forum told me about pearloid “the fastest way to make a guitar appear cheap”, you know what he meant :) Nope, not that bad but smiling too bright white to me sometimes so should i make it pour into dark black coffee or shue paint maybe?
Electronics? Well, Ali Exp. Level, i can say. But, you know, today it doesn’t meant to be as “bad”. I swapped the pickups, put a treble bleed mod but left the pots and DP/DT switch and tone cap. 5 way switch is just a circuit board type of thing and i may change it when something wrong with it. Because i don’t like the feel much of those.
I have also swapped the good ole white strat knobs with transparent speed knobs with sure grip ring. Looking more classy i think.
Conclusion
There’s a tendency—especially from the U.S.—to look down on Far Eastern guitars, or to be more specific, Chinese-made guitars. But the truth is that the last ten years, and particularly the last five, have shown an incredible leap forward. Today’s budget-friendly guitars are nothing like the cheap instruments of 1995. Manufacturing technology is far more advanced and now accessible to even smaller builders. Craftsmanship has improved dramatically compared to the past. Not perfect, of course—but certainly not bad or sloppy. And the hardware being used today (pickups, tremolos, pots, tuners, etc.) is miles ahead of what we had in the late ’90s and early 2000s. As a result, the gap between today’s affordable guitars and standard-level instruments has become remarkably small. That’s why I take modern, relatively affordable guitars seriously. I follow them closely whenever/however I can. Soloking has been on my radar for exactly this reason. Their guitars look genuinely sexy, and their prices remain quite reasonable.
After spending considerable time with this guitar—examining its flaws, correcting what needed to be corrected, and ultimately discovering its real character—I can confidently say that the Kozmos KST-S1CL / Soloking MS-1 Classic MKII is far more instrument than its price tag would ever suggest. Yes, it arrived with a handful of issues: an absurdly high factory setup, weak tuning machines, mediocre string trees, and in the Kozmos version, an undeniably unattractive headstock. But none of these (but the headstock) were structural or irreversible problems. Once the necessary adjustments were made, the guitar revealed what it truly is: a modern, highly playable, tonally capable fat strat that punches well above its class. Combined with a roested maple neck, stainless-steel frets, a well-crafted nut, and an ergonomic&lightweight body design, the guitar becomes an instrument you simply want to keep playing. After upgrading the pickups and addressing the hardware shortcomings, its tonal range expanded dramatically. It now covers everything from blues to classic heavy metal with convincing authority—especially that unmistakable ‘80s hard’n heavy edge.
In the end, I’m genuinely happy to have added a Soloking-built instrument to my collection—even if it arrived wearing a Kozmos badge. It performs beautifully, looks great after a little cosmetic refinement, and has earned a stable place in my lineup. I have no intention of letting it go anytime soon. And who knows… maybe one day I’ll treat it to that tortoise-shell pickguard, just for fun. Or paint the headstock if i can just find the same shade of sparkling grey. Again, just for fun, you know.
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