Electro-Acoustics

TTony

ICBM said:

TTony said:

stickyfiddle said:

@TTony - don't discount a non-electro acoustic with a pickup.  You can usually get a better guitar *and* plugged-in sound via that route.

I had discounted that because I didn't want to butcher my old Yam acoustic.

The reason why electro-acoustics are the devil’s work is because most of them use an invasive, unique set of parts - which means they cannot be upgraded or replaced in the event of reliability problems (which although not that common are far from unknown) without a huge amount of work, if it’s even practical at all. So you’re putting a nice guitar which should last decades and improve with age at the mercy of electronics which probably won’t.

I hadn't considered that at all.

Hmmmmm ... 

And I've just scanned gumtree for local sales of acoustics and found a couple that  look interesting ...


(Still don't fancy putting power tools anywhere near my old Yam acoustic though).

ICBM

TTony said:

(Still don't fancy putting power tools anywhere near my old Yam acoustic though).

You don’t need to. Even if the endpin hole needs enlarging, you do it with a hand reamer - safer than a power drill.

Either a soundhole pickup or a K&K or Baggs iBeam internal pickup doesn’t even need a hole drilled under the saddle.

Snags

I'm with ICBM - the replacement for the Tak was a Furch, fitted out with an internal Fishman system.  Bit of a step up in cost, but …

TTony

Just back from spending a couple of hours at Peach's little shop in Colchester.

Played a few - Sigma, Eastman, a s/h Crafter, skipped past the Fenders & Epis, Faith, all in the £300-£500 range of my budget, but nothing really clicked.




And then I went into the Taylor room.

Academy12 - bang on budget, although if I wanted it electro'd, it adds another £100 (they didn't have one in stock).  
GS Mini - which was a little outside budget, but had a beautiful walnut back and - if you closed your eyes - you'd swear the sound it made was coming from a full-sized body.  Only reason I'm not sat here playing that right now is that I was 100% sure on the size of it.

Head and shoulders above anything else I played there today.  I'm sure if I stretched the budget further still I'd find something I liked more still ... but there has to be a limit.  Ish.

I'm thinking it over.  They might get me an electo'd Academy12 in too, to back-to-back them all ...


No great surprise or news - but top marks to all the guys at Peach.   Scott & Martin and the younger guy whose name I didn't get, were perfect.  No pressured sales pitch, there when you needed them and somewhere else when you didn't.  Don't care if someone else has it £50 cheaper, my money is going to them.

You've got great staff @peachguitarsdotcom .
 

Snags

Oops, forgot about this.  In answer to the action question, it's an unscientific "about 1.8mm at the 12th fret".  Haven't had chance to get the proper measuring stick out, but a 1.5mm pick slides underneath with a tiny bit of wiggle room.

Assuming I can fit it and the tele in the car with all of the other crap we have to take to keep SWMBO happy, I'll probably have it up in Norfolk next week for practicing for Quad.  You're welcome to swing by if you want to, but I'm assuming you're really looking at expanding the budget to get something nice, rather than contracting it to get something adequate

TTony

Cheers @snags.

I admit to having had a lapse in budgetary control - though not on an R8 scale!

NGD pics will follow when I have some time.

Thanks for the info, and the offer to give it a spin, but on current trends, it’ll be c2055 before I buy my next acoustic ...

Enjoy the hols

Snags

Exciting times