Babicz Guitars ACMH-06

This is an - sort of - entry level Babicz, small size cutaway, with finish in both satin (top) and shiny laqceur areounf the rest. Neck is also satin. Bisy style is cutaway, fingeerstyle with slightly thinner and smaller body. Tuner, grovers black. Sturdy. Back and sides of Mahogany. Scale is the shorter one 24,5 something. Case included, a good hefty one. 20 frets. Made in 2006. Solid top. No onboard electrics at all.

On top of this, it has

1: adjustable string action via a hex wrench at the bak of the guitar, and

2: fanned out string anchors across the top. Where th strings ends. This renders the top more light and "taught". It's too esoteric to go into all the nuts and bolts here, but a friend of mine who actually knows a lot about sailing boats made out of wood, assured me that the same technique was - basically - used there! Not for good sound though, but for "raising pressure" of something and stability. Personally I have trouble to see any difference between the older trapeze tailpiece construction, save for that this "split bridge" will dampen any behind the bridge ringing and ghost notes.

3. Intonation possibilities. Just loosen the three allen screws on the bridge and move the bridge in its underlying slots forward and backward. This helps inotnation a lot, especially when changing string action. This was the deal maker for me.

Three "novelty" finesses on this axe. At least two of the did it for me. Changing string action, and intonation.

The sound is what this guitar is all about. Has a very loud sound reminiscent of Ovations, and something with small OM style Martins thrown in. Bright sound. Tends to sound best with a capo on any on the first seven frets. I resorted for a while, churning out all old Jethro Tull licks/chords that I knew, for some strange reason, cause it reminded me of the bright sound that Martins OM models had. The variety in sound depends on the action and setup, and of course, if you change strings. I felt no dead spots at the neck heel as on most other guitars in this price range.

The sound is very even, it's not boomy but can cut across serveral guitars playing. If this is too loud, just lower the string action and one has a "natural volume knob" so to speak. The sound is favorable to chording, comping and fingerstyle, mores than single note soloing high up the neck.

My music style is fingerstyle, AND slide work. This is where this action adjustments really makes sense. For me that is. It intonates properly, and well above twelfth fret. Chording together with open strings's a breeze.

There are some things that maybe adressed, that the allen screws underneath the bridge inside the top must be taught from there, and not from the screws on the top. Found some rattling at certain notes, and had to remove strings and try to pul my hand under and beneath. This remedied this rattling somewhat but you really need a special tool.

This is a no-no. I asked the seller- Nitro Tone music in Boston to actually slack the strings, and relieve the truss rod in the neck prior to shipping. So it wasn't set up at all when it arrived!

I couldn find any finish flaws and other that the Grover tuners where not as tight as expected causing a little play in the tuners when tuning. And rattling as well! I changed strings anyway, so I had to go through all this anyway.

A term that should be included in this category "action, fit and finish" would be BALANCE. Especially when reviewing basses. But anyway, this guitar is head, neck heavy, due to - or - thanks to that the top is light and it has no onboard electronics. Can't help feeling that open tuners, with gears visible, and of some UltraLite brand (like HipShot does for basses) would render the guitar as not too heavy. It does neck dive to the left. I don't know if this this inherent in the neck adjustment design or not. However, when strapped on with a strap it kind of hold it back a bit and had better balance but it was notable even then. An end strap pin made of led or iron cast would remedy this a bit though!

This is the first change I would do to this guitar. Searching for aluminum tuners, or as lightweight as possible. But I don't know yet. I will try to remove all tuners, and see if the guitar neck dives still, and if it does, changing tuners will turn out futile.

FRETS
Could be a little higher and wider for my taste and here comes my main grief: The spacing at the nut is too narrow for my tubby fingers, and when playing a lot of chords with pull offs on the outer strings, the strings seems to fret out. The frets are too narrow cut to the outer strings, i e the edges of the frets. This can be remedied somewhat with action adjustment. With a capo on, one can squeeze the strings towards the middle a little bit, but causing a retuning. The frets COULD benefit for some serious overhaul. I would like them to be more shiny and polished, because when doing vibratos one can hear the grit, and grinding of a - somewhat - poorly sanded fret. The levelling of the frets are ok though. But It was as though the neck was misaligned ever so slightly, I mean from the outer strings point of view.

NOTE: This may be OK, for a guitar at 499 USD. I'll bet that there are more out there that suffers from the same production shortcuts in this price range.

The thing is that I've tried their top model in a music shop in Denmark to an outrageously extortionate price, and that suffered the same in the frets department. I thought at that time, that it was just that one, that they kept in the shop (which suffered from dryness as well, leaving the fret edges feeling like a cactus) but this had the same feeling.

The saddle, bridge, nut was perfectly cut. No leftover glue anywhere - there's hardly any glue at all on the top!

Finish where flawless, a defintive plus that the back of the neck was satin finsihed, and not clear, shiny, laqcuer.

Yes, I'll have to wait on if this guitar will cope with scandinavian wheather, especially during winter. I will keep a humidifier inside the case. Hardware seems like it will last forever. The tuners are built like a tank, BUT WEIGHS ACCORDINGLY. :-)

It will withstand live playing. Haven't done this yet. I'll have to chime on this a year from now, to see if anything has happened to the top, or neck due to our dry winters up here.

I even phoned up Jeff Carano from Sweden. This is it. Since I've found out that I actually bought a Babicz from a non authorized Babicz dealer I though that I was on a scam. Not so. But he was very helpful in spite of this, and I can't think of him NOT getting an ulcer very soon! Having to bother with thousands of questions (stupid - as mine) through mail, and artist relations, endorsements and whatnot. Mail replied to within 48 hrs. I was almost embarrased and bowed my head in shame... :-)

I was trying to buy a demo, scratched and dent from him, but it turned out that he didn't exactly had the model I'd looked for (demoed that is). A Spider would suit me just as fine though.

I only urged him to get a Swedish distributor for Babicz as soon as possibl

30 years plus. NOTE: this is my first ever Acoustic Steel 6-strunged acoustic guitar! Having only owned all kind of electrics and nylon strings guitars, I thought that - by and large - Acoustics sucked big time. You had to pay major dough before they became acceptable to me in action and - especially - in intonation. Only the High end talyors Martins or, botique luthiers such as Klein, Traugott, Manzers would've been acceptable to me. But I coudl not afford it.

Now, that time had finally come. And why should I pay more, if I got what I asked for? The first thing I would do on this guitar is maybe install a pickup system. LR Bagss are pricey over here, and BBand seems to be a better choice for me, PRICE WISE that is!

I'd whis it hade slightly more polished frets, and nitpicking. Maybe I'll refrett it with large jumbo- stainless steel frets (Yuck! I can hear you go) and doing a PLEK machine job on it but I doubt it.