After a 20-month wait, my Rhapsody arrived today from John Buscarino. Since I am working from home today and was able to sign for it and open the box/case because it is fairly temperate today (in the 40s F or 7 C) so I had no finish worries with the nitro finish checking.
The guitar is simply stunning in terms of its fit and finish.
It is difficult to capture the subtlety of the gradient in a sunburst finish or the depth and beauty of real green abalone purflings in images, but trust me this is simply as good as it gets. This guitar is a relatively heavy guitar by flat top standards (5lb. 3 oz.) due to the carved East Indian Rosewood back (~2x thicker in the center), three-piece neck with Birdseye Sugar Maple center (~+20% denser than Honduran Mahogany) and the oversized archtop style peg head. For example, my Sexauer 16” SJ guitar is 3lb. 15 oz. in comparison. The guitar is NOT neck heavy at all and sits beautifully when playing it.
John set the instrument up to play like butter and the intonation seems perfect for my left hand. The guitar has somewhat taller/wider frets than my other acoustic flat tops that all have 0.043” x 0.080” frets with the 0.047” x 0.104” wire. The string spacing is also a bit narrower at 2.188” where my other flat top guitars have wider string spacing in the 2.25” to 2.312” range. So the Rhapsody really feels a bit more like an archtop when playing it.
I was able to play it for about 30 minutes during lunch since I am technically “working” today. The guitar responds with a fast attack, is projective and is wonderfully balanced in volume across the strings. The E and A strings produce a warm, crisp, articulate bass and string-to-string clarity. The trebles are strong and have a signature rosewood sound with sustain and overtones supporting their voice with the fundamentals remain distinct in the mix. The guitar also stays true to its voice through all registers of the fretboard, whether you play a chord on the 3rd fret or 15th fret which is always impressive (as heard in the video John made).
Due to the relatively low damping of the carved rosewood back, it definitely plays an active role in shaping the sound by interacting with the top and is not merely acting as a reflector. When you press the back against your tummy, the sound changes just like a traditional dished, ladder braced flat top back. John carved the back thin enough in the recurve to interact with the top and play an active role in the guitar’s voice.
So in short, my initial impressions are of pure delight...
