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2004 Yamaha LL-500
1995 Yamaha LA-8
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
Bearing in mind we are almost always talking about complex systems with onboard preamps - you really need to just avoid these unless you need the functionality for hands-on control, since they add potential unreliability (I have a lot of experience of this as a repairer), inevitable obsolescence, and in some people's opinion actually affect the acoustic tone of the guitar for the worse. And not least, an ugly plastic box in the side of the guitar. A simple pickup and jack, even with an active buffer and a battery holder on the inside, not so much.
I don't even think they sound that good. Ironically, the most natural amplified acoustic sound you can get now is in some ways the least natural in terms of technology - a plain undersaddle transducer driving digital modelling which effectively gives studio-quality mic'ed sounds, so you're not actually hearing the sound of the guitar at all really. As it happens I've just removed a quite highly regarded pickup/mic system from a guitar and replaced it with a plain UST and an offboard modelling preamp - it sounds better amplified, and I can replace the offboard unit at any time the technology improves further.
So, no I would not buy an electro-acoustic given the choice, even though manufacturers would like me to.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
A good example was an early 80s Yamaha acoustic that I fitted with a Shadow piezo unit a couple of years after I had bought it new. It was the type that has a high enough output not to need a preamp, and had individual hard saddles set into a narrow metal box profile with the piezo element sandwiched permanently in between them. I had to widen the saddle slot very slightly to accommodate it. One of the saddles became a bit dodgy so a while back I removed it, shaved down the original hard "urea" plastic saddle, and put it back into the guitar on top of a fairly standard under-saddle piezo strip (using one of those integrated end-pin preamps). The saddle leaned very slightly forward and the resultant unamplified tone was dull and uninspiring. I have other electro-acoustics anyway, so I removed it, made a new bone saddle that fits tightly, and the improvement in tone was immediate and startling. You definitely get better quality of unamplified sound with a properly fitted hard saddle (Bone / Tusq) making good contact with the wood in the slot than from a looser fitting saddle with a piezo strip under it.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
I think now if I had to store one, or have to leave one "unplayed" Id invest in one of those "opening up" machine/device thingys (struggling to remember WTF they're called ) they sit on the soundboard and pass a frequency to it to simulate being played so to speak
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
Now all of this is terribly subjective. What I'd really like to see is some clever person with a decent budget figuring out a way to put these phenomena on a solid scientific footing using double blind tensing and so on. But until a proper scientist comes along to nail it down, I'm comfortable to agree: (a) you have to play them enough to make them sound good, and (b) how much "enough" is varies from one guitar to another.
(and no, that's not a euphemism !!)
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.