For some background, go here:
http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...ad.php?t=93417
Anyways, I spent the weekend with my new AJ, and here's the review:
Appearance, fit and finish: I bought this AJ unseen, so I didn't have a chance to check it out before purchasing it. Overall, this guitar is very well executed. The fretwork, inlaywork and general playabilty are outstanding to the point of disbelief, and I love the way the neck transitions to the heel on the body. It's a smaller neck dimension-wise, but still "feels" like it has some heft to it.
Overall finishing is pretty well done, but really eyeballing it you can find some examples of orange peel here and there on the body. The neck and headstock look to be finished flawlessly. The binding work is generally good, if a bit "dirty" in spots, as is the nut. I haven't taken a cleaning cloth to it, but I found that some of the dirt came off with a little rub of my finger tip. There was also some "binding dust" that I cleaned off of the area around the soundhole. The sunburst is perfect...I have found some Gibsons with a slightly off-center burst pattern, but this one is perfect.
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). The firestripe pickguard is actually very subtle and contrasts nicer than a straight up tortoise-style one in my book.
Tone: As it's known for, this thing has lots of volume to go around. Strummed chords are very well balanced and digging in they don't compress, they just get louder...with really nice, woody bass and midrange response. This is a lot of fun for me as a guitar player. Single notes are very assertive, articulate and sustain extremely well, and the whole package just rattles your bones in a pleasant way when you dig in. Fingerpicked notes are backed up with some good punch and have a bit more roundness to them than flatpicked runs.
While the AJ is very responsive, it maintains its crisp character regardless of where strum and how loud you want to get. It won't really sweeten up if you try to be gentle with it but it has a very richness that comes through that is very pretty the closer you get to the neck. Still, it's game is big and loud.
I swapped out the factory .012-.053 set for a D'Addario .012-.056 Bluegrass set, and the volume response and sustain went up even more but the mids seem a little more one-dimensional now and I actually liked the playability a bit better with the lighter wound strings....the guitar just feels a little bit too tight tonally. I'll give it a week and see but I think I'm going back to the .012.053 set.
Overall: I'm still in a honeymoon period here, but so far I'm extremely pleased. It's got a great vintage vibe in tone and appearance and unique appointments that make it stand out even from other Gibsons. The workmanship might not please a perfectionist, but it touches on all the right points for me and it just feels like "me". I like that I can whack this thing and it doesn't flinch, and the volume and sustain really inspire me creatively.