Ah, I opened it up and here's what happened after that.

First, it's a Santa Cruz 00 in torrified Sitka and Macassar ebony. It is beautiful and plays as easy as any guitar I've ever had in my hand. The finish and craftsmanship is superb. But I sent it back today.

Because the tone was too strange for me. I did my research on what this wood combination should sound like and thought it would be pleasing. But it wasn't. It felt like there was a big hole in the sound spectrum. Something was missing, something I need.

The bass was anemic and underpowered, making the guitar feel unbalanced toward the treble, and yet it was also anything but bright. It sounded very flat. It was very difficult to get any emotion in the sound. It was dry, dampened and dull. There are those out there who like this wood combination, but not a whole lot, and there are others, as I found out now, who caution people to steer away from it.

I read about it being like rosewood with overtones and good sustain. I'll give it the sustain thumbs up; you could pluck a string before dinner and it would still be vibrating after dinner. But overtones? Hardly. I guess you could call it fundamental, but fundamental to what I don't know, because guys, it didn't sound like a six-string guitar. It honestly sounded like something that wanted to be but several pages of the instruction book got lost and they winged it in parts.

I'm not criticizing SCGC at all. I absolutely ADORE their stuff. It's just this one guitar didn't do it for me. At all.

Right now they are waiting for it and I have a Rosewood/Euro-spruce combo on hold in 000. That's another story as I'd like to stick with 00, but they had a 000 short scale in stock so I'm thinking it will be very close. The only differences are about 1/2" of extra body size and 24.9 instead of 24.75.