Hohner Eclipse ECA-800

Gloss finish plum or plum-burst finish with a solid spruce top. Body style is bowlback with a cutaway to access higher frets on upper strings. Tuners are gold Gotohs with Ebony buttons, Neck has 23 frets on upper strings. Came with a case. Recent make in the past couple of years no exact date. Has Axiom tuner/4 band EQ and volume onboard. Body is a woven alder, neck is a nitro finished 5 ply maple and mahogany with an ebony fretboard and bridge. Overall a guitar made with quality woods. Abalone inlay around the entire top with maple binding (a nice touch), abalone logo and abalone/black onyx Eclipse's on the headstock and bridge. Rear of the guitar has the usual bowlback access plate and a nice pattern stained in also there is a sprayed set of pine trees on the lower bout. Sound holes cascade off the top bout of the guitar to a smaller than usual center oval sound hole.

Sounds a little more beefy than the usual bowlback unplugged. I think this is because the woven alder may be a tad thicker compared to the same type of guitar from other manufacturers, it is supposed to be stronger than the usual bowlback wood. Plugged the EQ makes up a bit for it. Once again, the Piezo does amplify the notes but doesn't give any real tone when it comes to the overall sound.

Action was o.k. off the rack but needs to be lowered a bit. This will be done by my luthier. I am becoming the Korean guitar king out of neccessity so I am able to spot a decent one quickly. This is one of those. Definitely better made than a number of it's counterparts. No oversprays on laquer or wierdness in the finish.

Guitar seems to hold up well when playing. Whether it will withstand hard punishment live is another story and remains to be seen. Finish seems thick enough to last. One of the strap buttons has been positioned under the neck and seems to help alleviate the usual bowlback roll.

Haven't had to deal with Hohner yet, but the guy who's selling these on Ebay is a snake since he advertizes them cheaper on Ebay than he does off the rack in the store. He tried to sell me an extended warranty also.

I've been playing for 35 years and I have more gear than I can list here. I wish I had looked online before I bought this since I would have obviously had a better deal since the guitar would have been $75.00 less and there would have been free shipping. Again, the guy selling these is a snake but if you want a good one, wait until they come up used. He's a snake, the guitar is quality. I love the aestetic value of this, I hate the fact that I didn't investigate this seller more. I wish it had a smaller pricetag. The snake had Washburns that were way overpriced and Parkers that are just plain ugly.