Washburn EA18

This guitar has the look of a guitar many hundreds of pounds more expensive. The body contruction is all Ash. Being a lighter wood, this means you get plenty of brightness from the guitar, as well as a pretty decent weight and balance. I believe the neck is made of mahogany, but I'm not sure. The fingerboard is Rosewood, like most acoustic guitars and plays nicely. The pearl inlays and headstock logo are a nice touch too. The thing that I'm sure a lot of people buy this guitar for though, is the B-Band pickup and preamp which I'll talk about later. No tuner though, which is becoming increasingly more common in entry level acoustics.

I love the sound of this guitar. It's always a matter of personal opinion when it comes to acoustic guitar tone, but for me, the EA18 has a sound that couldn't be more appropriate for my music. Unplugged it's very bright with a little less bass than you might be used to. Being a pretty shallow depth acoustic, the volume of it unplugged leaves much to be desired, but that doesn't matter quite so much with it being an electro-acoustic. When you plug it in, the pickup really starts to work it's magic. The sound that is produced from the B-Band under-saddle condeser strip is accurate to an astonishing degree. The dynamics and tone are all maintained brilliantly. Also, by playing around with the EQ, you call pull just about any kind of acoustic tone. I find that this guitar is especially good for vocal accompaniment, which is why I bought it. Because the tone of the guitar is smooth and isn't overpowering, it takes nothing away from your vocals, which always helps. Overall, for the money, great tone.

I bought the tabacco sunburst model because I'm yet to see an acoustic guitar under 300 pounds that looks better! But needless to say, aesthetics are not the be all and end all... unless you're Kiss! The finish is undoubtably though, one of the highlights of the guitar. The action out of the box was impressive. Certainly better than the last acoustic I had. One small thing that doesn't bother me but may bother someone else is that the fingerboard inlays weren't all in line. Some of them were a little off centre or rotated. You really have to look hard to see this though. As I said, this doesn't bother me. No ones gonna hurl a bottle at you during your opening song because your inlays are a bit off!

It's an acoustic, and being such, it can't take quite as much punishment as a solid body electric. I wouldn't say it was any stronger or weaker than any other acoustic, because there's only one way to really test for durability and that's (ab)usage. It doesn't exactly look like it's gonna fall apart any time soon though! So it's all good. The tuners look pretty stable. They certainly haven't gone out of tune on me yet. All in all, pretty solid.

Haven't needed it.

I'm not a dedicated acoustic guitarist. Like many, I play electric guitar, but occasionally, the demands of a song are such that I need to whip out an acoustic. For that purpose, this guitar is a real winner. While I'm on the subject of being an electric guitarist, one thing I can't understand about acoustic guitars is the lack of a second strap pin! Sure, it may be tradition, but it's freakin annoying! This guitar is no exception to that strange rule. I wouldn't mark it down for being like everything else though. That doesn't mean to say I wouldn't mark it up for not being like everything else! At the end of the day, it was a toss up between the Crafter FX550EQ and this. I chose the EA18 because it looked better. Simple, possibly stupid, but I had nothing else to separate them! Overall, I'm glad I bought this guitar and hope it lasts me for many years. If not... I'll just go out and buy another one!