I just received a Mojotone NC-1 soundhole pickup. I wanted something I could swap in and out of guitars. I'll probably mount it permanently in one when I decide which will be best suited for it. So far, I've only put it in one, an eastman E20-OM, but I'm pretty impressed, so I thought I'd share my thoughts for anybody else who may be interested. Please keep in mind I've had it for exactly 1 day. This is far from a long term review.
Things I like about it:
It's very light. Barley made a weight difference in my guitar.
It installed in about 60 seconds with a philip head screw driver (pickup only, I haven't routed the cord through the end pin). I was able to do this without loosening the strings at all.
It's alive and natural sounding. I totally get the sound of my guitar. There is no "electric guitar" sound that I get from most soundhole magnetic pickups. It is percussive, meaning if you tap on the top, it comes through the pickup, which I think is one of the reasons it sounds natural. Soundwise, I think it is on par with my LR Baggs Anthem I have in a similar guitar. I did find it a tad bass heavy going through my Bose S1 Pro, but a little bass rolloff fixed that in short order. After that it was balanced string to string and required very little EQ to get it where I wanted it.
The battery compartment is easy to get to. It uses 2 cr2032's in a little "drawer" that slides out. They claim 500 hours of battery life and there is a button that provides a battery check.
They provide a clip for the output jack in case you don't want to permanently install it. (Can clip it to a strap, your shirt, etc)
The mounting pads are cork and don't feel like they will mess with the guitar finish. It secures very firmly without needing much pressure at all on the sound board.
It's noise canceling and is very quiet. For my purposes, it might as well be silent.
I had it at a pretty high volume tonight sitting right next to the speaker and it didn't even hint at feeding back.
The wiring is minimal. Don't have to have a bunch of crap inside my guitar. Just 1 wire from pickup to endpin.
Things I didn't like about it:
The volume knob is on the bottom of the pickup between low E and A strings. It's difficult to get to. I can reach under there by stretching the strings out of the way a little, but I don't see being able to make subtle adjustments while playing. My big sausage fingers don't help.
The cable is permanently attached to the pickup. it would be nice if you could unplug it to remove the pickup when not needed but leave the wiring in place.
It might just be me, but I think I detect a bit of decrease in the resonance of the soundboard when it's attached. Not a ton, but I notice it. Plugged in, this makes zero difference, but acoustically.... It's not just this pickup though, I hear that with all soundhole pickups. Hence the comment above - it'd be nice to be able to remove it, especially with how easy it is to take on and off, and leave the internal wiring in place.
There is no adjustability for volume of individual strings. It didn't need it on my Eastman. I plan to try it in some of my other guitars, so we'll see.
Overall I think they've got a winner on their hands. It's the best sounding magnetic soundhole pickup I've ever tried. Easy to install, feedback resistant, light weight, long battery life. Definitely worth consideration.
