NGD- Balazs Prohaszka SJ- Cedar/Exotic Madagascar RW (Lowden-y Style)

[jojobean39]

So I just got this guitar today and I’m so stoked. I have had my eye on this guitar for 8 years!

Balazs was trained under Lowden and worked for Lowden, Avalon and Zemaitis. His guitars clearly have the Lowden influence. He does just custom stuff now, as far as I know. About 7 guitars a year.

I played his guitars at GuitarGal back in 2010. Fell in love. I played this very guitar back then. I’ve followed his stuff since then, but they are rare birds and I’ve only ever seen about 4 of them for sale. I have watched this guitar since then. It went from GuitarGal to another dealer in NY. I got an email last week from the owner of this guitar and he asked if I wanted to buy it. The price was right and I did. It was still technically new old stock.

I was able to purchase one of the very guitars that I played back in 2010 that made me love them.

The specs:

Top- Alaskan Western Red Cedar
Back/Sides- Madagascar Rosewood
Headstock- Some unknown Australian timber
Bridge- Brazilian Rosewood
Rosette- Brazilian Rosewood/Flamed Maple
Binding- Madagascar Rosewood/Flamed Maple
Neck- Brazilian Mahogany

The sound is very Lowden like. Big. Lush. Full. Rich. It has that “British” acoustic sound. I owned a Lowden F32 and this is a good bit louder, but the body is also a bit bigger.

[jojobean39]

And in typical bad luck... night one I put my new guitar in its case and one of my keys fell in (unknown to me). I shut the case and it made a nice cut on the back of my guitar. Argh.

Luckily it was on the back, but that’s some luck. It was literally within an hour of getting it. :-(

[mattwood]

The guitar gods always seem to exact their price. Congrats though. Looks like an awesome guitar! Big too!

[Rosewood99]

Beautiful guitar. Don't worry about the scratch. Who can even see the back while you are playing or while it's on it's stand? Always thought that looks for the back of a guitar were overrated. It's the front that you are seeing.

[jojobean39]

Thanks for the kind words. It’s an amazing guitar, for sure. It just sucks that it happened so quickly. I mean, I play all my guitars, so they get used. But I’ve never put a scratch on something so quickly.

I do believe I acquired my best sounding acoustic so far. All of my guitars sound nice (or I wouldn’t have them) but this one gives the McPherson a run for its money and that says a lot. It plays like a dream.

[marty bradbury]

Wow! Beautiful guitar! Enjoy,