Product: Abilene AB/AW025GEQ
Price Paid: US under$200
Submitted
12/05/2000
at
11:18pm
by
Scott
Email: scott<dot>douglas at mindspring<dot>com
Features
:
8
'2000 Samick made in Korea single cut away acoustic with piezeo saddle pickup and 3 way EQ w/ volume. Grover tuners, high gloss poli-glop Spruce lam top and Nato sides and back. Rosewood fretboard and ?? neck wood. Active electronics w/ battery housed under EQ.
Same exactly as Samick of similar model number and also sold as Silvertone.
Sound
:
8
I had the opportunity to have two of these at the same time. I got them wholesale for friends that wanted good value electric acoustics. They are a lot for the price they paid - under $200! One guitar sounded better acoustically than the other and had different headstock finsh color (stained mahogany) and had Grover tuners for some reason! The other was black headstock with no-name sealed tuners. The Grover one had a few minor finish flaws but sounded slightly richer and projected a tad better than the other one. That one was thinner sounding somewhat.
Electronics sounded about the same. One EQ had some scratch in the slide pots. Working them cleared it up and I shot some tuner cleaner in both just for added measure. Not too bad for lowend guitars. I was really impressed FOR THE MONEY. I strummed my Seagull M6 gloss and it was a superior to the Abilenes but did not blow the Abilenes away when the $$$ aspect was considered. An 8 for sound on the one and a 7 on the other.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
8
Action was mediocre to bad. I tweaked the truss and helped some. I will lower the saddle and nut when they put strings on. Strings provided were junk. The friends will get strong fingers and some frustration with them now but will love the feel when they are set up with new strings and lowered action.
Guitar finish was pretty darn good and felt and looked great. Very minor gloss flaws.
The Pots are questionable but with some care and cleaning will be servicable for years. Grovers on the one were a freak but he no name sealed tuners were OK. Not as high ratio as my Seagull and not near as smooth in both cases. Its wierd they came with the two different tuners and headstock colors. ? Frets were pretty even and edge finish OK. One was slightly better than other.
The top book match on both was amazingly good. Perfect symetry! I do'n know how they do it. The spruce was not super clear on the "Grover" one. Looked kinda cool in a ugly duck way. Glueing inside was neat and clean. Great for the $$.
Again, new strings and setup will make these great little players.
Reliability/Durability
:
7
These are not professional instruments but would do well for a coffee house/fireside/dormtory guitar. Pots are mediocre as stated above but servicable.
Customer Support
:
8
I dealt with Abilene Samick on an electric once before. They were hard to a hold of do to timing of calls and the NAMM Show. They were did my well on that solid body electric. They replaced the neck with an upgraded Valley Arts neck (not too shabby a neck!) and set the guitar up pretty well. Paid shipping etc.
Overall Rating
:
8
Strummed acoustics 30+ years, electric 3 years. I own my Seagull M6 gloss, Warmoth Tele homebrew, Fender MIM Strat - both with Rio Grande pickups! '63 Silvertone Switchmaster, '60 Stratotone, Yamaha jazz bass (Rio Grandep-ups!), Flextone Plus, SF Princeton, Silvertone Twin Twelve, Champs and tons of crap in and out all the time. Had a Seagull S6 Cedar I stupidly sold - GREAT axe!
I would not buy one for myself but highly recommend it for a student or college bound kid. Someone who wanted alot for the $ but not too expensive as to worry about it. They still would be kinda proud to own and play it I think.
They need, as all guitars need, a good set up. Decent light strings, tweak truss as needed, lower saddle and nut some etc. The fact you get the electronics is really nice and they are fine too. If you can grab one for about $225 and pay the shop to set it up for $35-50 you would be way ahead. This would make a GREAT high school graduation present IMO>
