Well, for me it's two down, two to go, Marc! My son grabbed the GAL5990E and was really crestfallen on Christmas Day when he realised I had not emailed him about the eBay sales. It was his birthday two days later, and I handed the guitar over, with a new bone bass saddle which fixed the balance better. He's really delighted. My small ultra-slim body all maple 'stage' type electro acoustic, with cheaper piezo-crystal pickup system, arrived and turned out to be a stormer. The wood is beautifully flamed, intonation was accurate, and what sounded a bit quacky and harsh at home was exactly right through the AER at our session on Friday. The guitar is a peculiarity - no real curve on the back or top, some oddly mitred fingerboard and headstock binding, extremely thin sides and a very shallow body, very thin maple top as well. But it projects amazingly well, and has plenty of bass and sweet, not thin, trebles. I restrung and shimmed the bass saddle; the saddle slots are not really deep enough for the thick piezo USTs, but even so, the saddle doesn't tilt and intonation has stayed fine. I also removed the big preamp module and got a Jap saw inside and tidied up the appalling mess made of the braces, literally hacked to fit the preamp, and it was touching some wood splinters and rattling. Took two minutes to trim neatly for a good 1mm clear of the hardware. The inside, before the hacking, was well finished without excess glue. The preamp is too large, and the kerfing has been cut to fit it. I guess this is the kind of production issue Marc will be addressing for 2007 models.
This tiny guitar has amazingly good articulation - very fast and well separated - and extreme projection/presence. It's a bit like some guitar-body bouzoukis. Unplugged, I could easily be the loudest and clearest 'voice' and had to lay off when using a sharkfin (amazing on very crisp guitars like this). Plugged in, roll off the treble a bit and it could be mellow.
I made a recording, which hit No 1 in Soundclick Acoustic Folk within 24 hours of putting it up, and was at No 14 in the entire Acoustic genre:
http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/0...SongID=4855476
Over the weekend I checked Marc's new sales, ordered myself another £xx Fishman-equipped small body rosewood/cedar cutaway, then found he'd got resonator guitars at £xxx including a hard case... so I bought one as well.
I'll let you know how these turn out.
David