An owner of a DC727 here. I've changed the pickups, cause the stock ones where ceramic C22 which sounded a bit cold and sterile and I've bypassed the active plate, I never liked that piece of the circuitry although I've ordered it myself with the guitar. Now I have Bare Knuckle Rebel Yell alnico pups built in, fully passive.
So I may even compare two kinds of settings of a Carvin guitar combined with an Axe FX 2. Before: the clean sounds where very good and the gain sounds where OK but kind of compressed and fizzy. I tried my Axe FX in the meanwhile with my old Gibson SG and had to say that this old 6-stringer sounded much heavier than my 7-string Carvin. I looked up in internet for modern alnico pickups and ended up soon with the mentioned above. After: I don't know, I didn't play that many guitars in my life but it sounded huge. The cleans are warm and their sound is so versatile, especially when switching bridge/neck. My idea was just one guitar for every style of music, cause I'm to lazy to handle more than one instrument. With it and the Axe FX, I squeeze every possible sound out from Jazz, Ambiental, Funk, Reggae over Rock to Metal (old school to prog). I mean the sound, not the skills.
Let me resume, I don't know what tones are you after and how big are the differences between Carvin models but if I can judge by my instrument, if you have the right pickups, it should sound great. The most important thing was never the brand or the model, it was always how does it feel in your hands and under your fingers and how much do you enjoy to play it. If that's all right for you, you can swap the pups if needed, that's all.
Axe FX with the Q2 firmware can make any guitar sound good.
