[Tarnisher]

I've had the pleasure of auditioning an Emerald X5 recently, and I thought I'd share my observations.

Definitely more portable than the Cargo- significantly less depth, and shorter, though it actually has a full scale.

I personally didn't care for the sound of the Cargo when I tried one. It sounded far too bass heavy. The X5 is certainly quieter and has less bass, but overall I prefer its sound. It sounds better on chords than single notes, as the sustain is fairly short on single notes. Partially for this reason, it sometimes sounds a bit boxy or toy-like to me, like it lacks overtones that I'm used to in my other, larger, wood guitars. That said, it's doesn't sound bad, and it's surprisingly loud, considering the size.

I find the neck of the X5 much more comfortable than the Cargo, though the flat fretboard took a little getting used to. Actually, a lot of things about the fretboard took some adjustment on my part. For one thing, it's smooth as glass. Also, because the neck is hollow, the fretboard actually acts as a soundboard, and you hear the string vibrating both at the bridge and the fret. This is a bit annoying because it means that fret buzzing is amplified, and it exposes sloppy technique.

One major plus for me about the X5 is its full sized soundhole, which allows it to take my soundhole pickups. I tried it with a Takamine Tri-Ax (same thing as a Baggs M1A), and with a Lawrence single coil soundhole pickup. The soundhole has a flange, which some people told me might make this a no go, but both fit fine, and with great results. It sounded terrific through the Takamine, and makes a great hollow body electric with the Lawrence. Plugged in, you'd never know it wasn't a full sized wood guitar.

Other than the fret noise and the lack of sustain/overtones, I think this may be the ideal travel guitar. All travel guitars are compromises on some level. You're never gonna get Dreadnought sound out of an instrument that you can take on a plane and play in an arm chair. But all things considered, the X5 is a pretty successful instrument.

Oh, one more thing- I find carbon fiber guitars to be pretty ugly, for the most part. Emerald has solved this problem by overlaying wood laminate on their guitars, and though I don't like the artificiality, I have to admit that it looks a hell of a lot nicer. It might cut down on nick damage too.