Thoughts on AER AK-15 plus pickup?

[RondoGuitarDude]

Hi guys, new poster here. I'm looking to get a pickup put in my Martin D-28. I love how it sounds, but I play out alot and sometimes it's just more convenient to plug direct. I'm looking for a quality pickup that isn't going to change the natural sound of the guitar. My local dealer suggested the AER AK-15 plus because it involves very little drilling of the guitar itself. Does anybody out there have one, and what do you think about it?

Also if you have other pickups that fit what I am looking for, feel free to throw them out there. Thanks in advance!

[jhchang]

I don't have one, but one of friends who owns a guitar store is an expert on it. The tone is very natural, with a hint of UST, and the output signal is very hot. If I were getting a new PU it'd be either AK-15 or Baggs Anthem.

[Beatntrack]

I have been through expensive phases of trying/evaluating and moving on between several acoustic pickups, notable the LR Baggs Anthem, the AER AK 15+, the Barbera Soloist and the Fishman Matrix Infinity.

It is hard to A/B pickups in the same guitar because of the deinstall/reinstall period but here are my general thoughts after using all of them for a period of months,

The Barbera Soloist is great, very hot in its passive state and requires a preamp to attenuate it. It has no tone or volume controls so it's well suited to a pedal board where you have gain staging and shaping possibilities.

The Baggs Anthem is very nice too, with a less meaty sound. Its drawback is a very weak output, so if you have multiple guitars in a show the one with the Anthem will require major boosting relative to the others. Nice natural tone otherwise and some system noise resulting from the weak gain.

The Fishman Matrix Infinity, which I installed in all five of my guitars, has medium gain and a midrange scoop knob. That's nice when playing at background music volume but makes for a boomy bottom and ugly top if you have acrylic nails. The new TC Bodyrez obviates the midrange scoop function (and does it better) in a pedal.

The AER AK15+ is very hot and sports a mic embedded in the preamp assembly. It's not widely available but Musician's Friend sell it. My gripes are that I have had three that are faulty and that when I email AER in Germany I get no reply. That's pretty bad. The sound and gain are impressive when everything is working but I no longer trust the QC.

At this point I may have come full circle and am thinking about putting an Anthem in at least one guitar and adding gain from my pedal board manually.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

cheers
Dave

[RogerPease]

I don't know anyone that's worked harder on comparing acoustic pick ups than Doug Young.

Check out the comparisons on his website: http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/pickuptests/

He hangs out on this forum sometimes and may join in.

Cheers and happy hunting.

_Roger