I bought an Eastman 805-an awesome guitar-a few months ago and would offer the following assessment:
I can fingerpick blues and folky stuff, but this guitar comes alive with a stiff pick. I moved away from flatpicking and have been primarily fingerpicking and finger strumming my flattops for a number of years. I do play my 805 this way. It gives a warm, fairly mellow tone when fingerpicked...it's nice, responds well, but is somewhat restrained. It becomes a brash, aggressive beastie under a flatpick. It sounds good under my fingers, again at its best under a pick.
Overall these guitars have a strong acoustic presence. My 805 raised the eyebrows of a guy with whom I jammed recently. He was expecting a more restrained midrange "pokey" character common to archies. Even with a finger strum I hit a E7+9 chord and the guy simply said "Woah!".
They're cool guitars!
