Acoustic-Electric advice needed....

[duhvoodooman***]

Our church is in the process of adding a second praise band with some of us "oldsters", since about 2/3 of the current band will be heading off to college next fall. I need to pick up a decent acoustic-electric for this purpose; I want a dreadnought style body with a cutaway and wish to keep the fiscal damage to $500 or less. Poking around online and paying attention to price, features and customer satisfaction/feedback, a couple of models that seem to stand out to me at this point are the Seagull Entourage Rustic CW QIT ($500) and the Washburn WD25SCE ($400). I'm interested in any feedback on these two makes & models, plus any other pertinent info/recommendations that meet the above criteria. TIA!!

[marnold***]

The only advice I can offer is that the Washburn that my son bought is really nice, both acoustically and amplified. It's a slightly lower end model than the one you mention. It probably won't be mistaken for a Martin, but it doesn't cost nearly as much. In a band context I'm not sure the average person would know or care.

[duhvoodooman***]

Thanks, Rev. Yeah, I'm certainly not looking for Martin levels of quality or price! Just a well-made instrument with good sound, acoustically & electrically, and easy to play.

[marnold***]

My son's Washburn has all of that. Really fun to play. I don't know if the shop we bought it from did much setup on it before they put it out, but I certainly didn't have to do anything to it.

[duhvoodooman***]

Waitin' on some feedback from the Canuck Fretter contingent on the Seagull, since it's 100% Canadian made....

[Zip]

Check out the Ibanez EW20ASE NT (quilted ash body). I have one, and it gets more play time than more expensive lumber I own. The notch filter is very usable, great projection, woody tones, and looks pretty nifty too. Here's what they look like---->here (not my sale, BTW).

[cebreez]

Check out the Ibanez EW20ASE NT (quilted ash body). I have one, and it gets more play time than more expensive lumber I own. The notch filter is very usable, great projection, woody tones, and looks pretty nifty too. Here's what they look like---->here (not my sale, BTW).

Thats a really good looking acoustic! I like the price too! What I found out after purchasing two acoustics online (im hard to train) is that the guitars were nothing that I expected and I ended up getting rid of both. The only way to buy an acoustic/electric is to go to the music store and pick it up and play it. Im lucky enough to have a Guitar Center close buy so I can put hands on most makes and models. That is where I learned that even some of the more expensive models were total crap while some of the cheaper models like the Ibanez can have a really comfortable out of the box feel and sound.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

Seagulls are nice, good-sounding guitars, but I advise that you check out the neck first. Even though the Entourage series has the narrower nut width of 1.72" (other Seagulls are 1.8), it's still a bit wider than many other guitars, and the profile is a bit strange, kinda fat-shouldered. I have an A&L dread with the same neck, and have never been able to bond with it, due to the neck.

[cebreez]

How about this one duhvoodooman... http://www.guitarcenter.com/In-Store...84-i2948232.gc

[duhvoodooman***]

Guess I'm definitely gonna need to head up to my favorite local guitar emporium and try a few of these. I generally know what to expect from the better known brands of electrics. But on these acoustic-electrics....not so much.

[Eric***]

I think Seagull, Washburn, and Ibanez artwood (or those exotic wood ones that were mentioned above) are all good. The Seagulls I've played don't project very well, but they're nice and warm, which is what I usually go for. I usually plug in anyway, so volume isn't a big deal -- I just don't know that I'd use one if I was in a bluegrass band.

The nicer Takamines are also good to play. Some people do dislike the necks on Seagulls, so I would make sure you like it before plopping down the cash. Personally, I like the neck a lot on the regular ol' S6 that I have.

If you want to fit in with the current church trends, go for Taylor or Breedlove. I've always been a little underwhelmed by Breedlove though. Nice guitars, but they don't really blow me away when factoring in price.

[duhvoodooman***]

Anybody have any experience with the Epiphone Masterbilt series, specifically the DR-500MCE model? I'm reading a lot of good things about these guitars--excellent workmanship & quality, impressive sounding 2-pickup eSonic2 electronics, and 100% solid wood construction. There are some good deals ($400 - $450) on this normally $600 guitar on eBay for factory seconds due to cosmetic blemishes.

[duhvoodooman***]

The deal is done!

Went to my local GC tonight and played a bunch of guitars, including the Epi Masterbilt DR-500MCE, Seagull Entourage, a couple of Yamahas, an Ibanez, a Taylor 110CE, a Martin, and a Breedlove. Those last three were all in the $800 range, more than I intended to spend, but I wanted to compare them. My clear favorite? The Epi Masterbilt, hands down, even ignoring the price difference. Very comfortable neck that felt like an old friend, beautiful rich dreadnought tone, beautiful looking guitar (had the natural top, not the burst), played great, and I was really impressed with the sound of the electronics. The two different pickups that can be used separately or blended together is a very cool feature and gives the guitar tremendous tonal flexibility. Second choice for me was the Taylor--it played very well and I found that neck extremely comfortable, too. But I wasn't quite as keen on its brighter tone, though it's extremely articulate. Electronics sounded good, but not up to the level of the Epi.

So I promptly hopped in my car, drove home and bought a new factory second that I had checked out this afternoon on eBay. Has a couple of very minor cosmetic defects (shown in photos), but the seller has impeccable ratings, there's a 14-day money-back guarantee, and I only had to pay $415 including shipping. Also got a well-rated Guardian HSC for an additional $60. So $475 for the whole enchilada, nicely staying within my $500 budget limit. I'm a happy camper! The eBay auction is here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=121071511601

Will post more when it arrives....

[Duffy]

The deal is done!


Will post more when it arrives....

I have been interested in reading about your experience with the Masterbilt. Has it not arrived yet? It seems like it has been a while. It definitely will be interesting to hear about the new Epi, for sure.

[duhvoodooman***]

I have been interested in reading about your experience with the Masterbilt. Has it not arrived yet? It seems like it has been a while. It definitely will be interesting to hear about the new Epi, for sure.

Yep, it arrived on Fri. Mar. 3. I am very pleased with the guitar and have been playing it a lot. It's got a really nice, rich dreadnought tone, it plays great, and the workmanship is excellent. The cosmetic "defects" are ridiculously minor, so getting $175 off the going price of $600 was a killer of a deal. It had just one issue that bothered me a bit--the saddle seemed very high to me, protruding almost 3/8" above the bridge piece. That translated to a rather high action once you got up around the cutaway. The neck relief was fine, so it was really just a saddle height issue. The saddle actually leaned slightly back toward the neck from the string pressure, so I was also concerned that it might be stressed to the point of cracking at some time in the future.

I really didn't want to fool around with that myself, so I took it to a local luthier who was highly recommended to me by a guitar-playing coworker. The guy is the authorized Martin warranty service rep for this area and also builds guitars, and really knows his stuff. I brought it over to him and he worked on it while I sat there & chatted with him. When he measured it, it turned out that the string height at the twelfth fret was pretty close to right on spec on the bass side, but a bit high on the treble side, so he removed the saddle and sanded off a bit diagonally toward the treble side. In the process, he found that the factory had installed a couple of thin shims under the saddle in the bridge slot, beneath the Nanoflex pickup strip. We decided to take one out, to lower the saddle in the slot a bit. This dropped the string height slightly below spec, but no buzzing occurred, so that's the way we left it. This noticeably improved the action up around the cutaway, and the lean of the saddle is much reduced. The guitar plays like butter now--very comfortable when playing for an extended amount of time, even for a soft-fingered electric guy like me.

[Eric***]

The guitar plays like butter now--very comfortable when playing for an extended amount of time, even for a soft-fingered electric guy like me.

Cool deal, DVM. When are you going to have it in action? That's the fun part!

[duhvoodooman***]

Cool deal, DVM. When are you going to have it in action? That's the fun part!

I used in in our second praise band rehearsal this past Saturday--got compliments on how good the guitar sounded. The first Sunday we're scheduled to play is the week after Easter, Apr. 7th.

[piebaldpython***]

Congrats on your git. Epi's have come a long way. Uh-oh......since you got something to ADD to your collection......does that mean something has to bite the dust and leave the fold??? Parting is such sweet sorrow.

[duhvoodooman***]

Uh-oh......since you got something to ADD to your collection......does that mean something has to bite the dust and leave the fold???

Nope, not this time--special exemption from the "1-in-1-out" rule since the guitar is for the church praise band.