View Single Post
  #8  
Old 01-23-2007, 07:02 AM
drive-south drive-south is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 4,630
Default

"The top is matched extremely well, and the seam is practically invisible....it's not incredibly apparent at first that this is not a solid top. The top, back and sides are very nice pieces of wood with very straight and narrow grain patterns, with the occasional miniscule imperfection here or there (two by my count so far)."

If we are talking about a Gibson AJ (not an Epi) then it is most definately an all solid wood guitar. There is no laminate (plywood) on these puppies.
If what you are saying is it has a 2-piece top and back, then I agree but this is standard on just about every dread out there including Martin D28s, etc. Finding pieces of spruce or rosewood wide enough to make a 16" top is nearly impossible these day, and I don't think you'd want that anyways.

I also own a Gibson AJ (from 2004) and it is vastly differant from all of my other acoustics (I have a baker's dozen). One thing I notice about my AJ is when you play without a capo, it has this huge midrange that tends to over-power the bass/treble. Put a capo on the 2nd fret or higher and the mid-range is tamed to the extent that the tone sweetens up a lot. Try it you'll like it!

The fit and finish on mine is excellant. The only weird thing I noticed is on the rosewood back there is one small area of circular grain near the edge of the treble side that looks almost like a knot.

I installed a K&K mini-western pickup in mine because the bridge is not a good match for a UST pickup. I'm still experimenting trying to get good sound from the pickup. So far I'm dissipointed in the pickup and I'm considering getting a K&K preamp for it as the ones' I've tried didn't cut it.

Congrats. New guitars are always a blast. I just bought a Larrivee Parlour guitar last weekend and I'm having a great time playing with my new little toy.

drive-south
Reply With Quote