Ovation 1867 Legend

1992 USA Super shallow bowl with cutaway. 5 piece neck in mahogany and maple. Solid A grade spruce top. Old style OP 24 Pre-amp with volume & 3-band tone controls.Which incidently I prefer to the later type as fitted to my Legend 12-string ( 4-band with notch filter & EQ on/off).
I find there's too much variation possible with the later type. It's so easy to get a good sound with the simpler older type, although the notch filter is useful to cut out annoying feedback frequencies.I have lost a button from the 12-string pre-amp, whereas the button on the older types has little risk of falling.
Changing the battery with the older OP 24 is a pain, as you have to loosen or remove the strings, and put your hand through the soundhole to gain access. With the new type it's a doddle, although on my 12-String, the battery rattles audibly & I remove it to play acoustically.
Gold plated Schaller machineheads fitted- no complaints there.Finish is superb, with a lovely satin varnish for the neck and gloss elsewhere. Very tough & resistant & nice looking too.
Ebony fingerboard with MOP inlaid markers. Nice looking, but I find the markers a bit meaningless and think the 5th 7th & 12th frets could be made to stand out more clearly for easier reading.
Nice compensated bridge saddle,- which I notice Ovation are doing away with on recent models- with individual piezo pick-ups incorporated for each string. Shims underneath for height adjustment.
Allen type truss rod adjuster accessible via soundhole.
Walnut pinless bridge. The pick-up assembly is not always a tight fit and it's a good idea to fix a thin shim behind it to stop any forward inclination. The 2 pins on each end can sometimes be a bit loose, though that's easily fixed.
I'll give it a 9 because just the bridge assembly isn't perfect !

I've had a few Ovations before: Applause, Celebrity, Thunderbolt & Elite, but I've never really been happy with them. The Thunderbolt was the best. The Elite was just too easy to play and the sound seemed to smothered as it fought to find it's way out of those holes. Too brittle & rounded. I tried 2 but they made me miserable.Boring !
The Legend is IT ! It has that elusive magic that's so hard to capture. It really sings and the sound just sparkles & flows out from the rossette. The music seems to make sense & it's really easy to knock out songs. I should have made the effort to get one of these a long time ago, but never found one second-hand until now.
It sounds great acoustically, but I also use it direct through some effects for recording. It also sounds fine through a Marshall JMP-1 on clean setting with Alesis Midiverb , Marshall Valvestate Power Amp & Hughes & Kettner speakers, which I normally use for electric. No feedback problems & a nice rich sound. I reckon you could get a good sound through just about anything on clean setting.
I use it for a sort of progressive rock/pop style, & I wouldn't consider using anything but Ovation, as anything else just doesn't have that sort of Mediaeval magical sound, which I believe is due to the rounded back.
I tried some Adamas models, and found them dead boring. Not much wood in them apart from the neck & bridge and it shows !
The Custom Legend would be the only thing I would consider changing it for and even then I'd have to be very convincecd that it was really better.

I bought this second hand, so I can't judge the original set-up. But it's 8 years old, and if no-one ever touched it then it's stayed perfect since then. The strings are reasonably low, but not too low as they were on the Elite.(I tried raising them but the sound suffered) I believe if you have to make a bit of effort to play it, then this shows in the sound.
Just the bit of play in the bridge assembly to complain about.
The strings tend to bite into the saddles after time, and just lightly sanding the fronts of the saddles(not the backs) removes any excess plastic which can inhibit the strings from vibrating 100% freely and also corrects the intonation. The white plastic saddle is in fact removable from the pick-up assembly and can be ordered from Ovation very cheaply, if yours is a bit worn.

This guitar is very solid & will last years. Just look at an old Ovation from the 70's or 80's for proof!
Strap buttons fine.
I always like to have some sort of back-up for a gig as you never know. Changing a string is easy, but if the pre-amp broke down, you've got problems. Pretty unlikely, but stll , I feel better.I'd probably use the electric instead anyway, so I wouldn't back it up with another acoustic.

I had a problem with my 12-string ( my own fault) and I needed a new pick-up assembly. Ovation USA were great & I dealt with them by E-Mail. The problem is that I live in France and I had to go through the distributors CAMAC. Remember that name ladies & gentlemen and I hope you'll never have the misfortune to deal with them. 3 weeks to send me the part.- the wrong one. then another few days for the right one. When I telphoned them I was treated like a bloody nuicance in an offhand & rude manner. Even their E-mail facility was out of order.
In my frustration, I E-Mailed Ovation UK who completely ignored my
requests - thanks guys ! - it was only thanks to the efforts of Andy Schlosser at Ovation USA who managed somehow to communicate successfully with CAMAC that I managed to get the part at all.
I give the customer support USA 10 points, and Customer support France -50 points.Customer support UK may not even exist as far as I can tell.

I've been playing for 30 years. I also own a couple of electrics & a Legend 12-String. Before I bought it, I wish I'd asked if it had a case, as I sold my Elite to be able to buy it along with it's case. I turned up at the shop with the money & was told there was no case ! Thanks a lot Music Market. This guitar probably cost less new than what I paid second-hand. With a case included! But as the dollar has gained in value,a new one is double that now! So although I think the price was high, it was still a saving on a new one and worth every penny,in any case - sorry did I say case, grumble, grumble.
If it was stolen or lost, I'd run around in eternal circles like a chicken with its head cut off screaming, until someone offered me another one to shut me up, or if not successful I'd somehow scrape enough money together to buy another one - with a case !