Product: Alvarez MF80CAURA
Price Paid: USD 1024
Submitted
03/27/2009
at
10:05am
by
Scott B
Features
:
8
High end Chinese made guitar, with solid Engelmann spruce top, mahogany back and sides with gloss finish and maple binding, mahogany neck with satin finish, compensated saddle. Comes with the Fishman Aura preamp. Grand Concert shape with a single cutaway.
The Fishman Aura has treble, mid, and bass sliders, a volume knob, an accurate easy to read tuner, feedback suppression, and of course the 6 sonic "images" of the guitar recorded with 6 different mics and a slider that blends the Aura image with the straight piezo signal. There is also a phase button that reverses the polarity of the Aura image which reults in more tonal variation when mixes with the pieze.
Sound
:
9
Unplugged, the guitar sounds great. Vibrant, good volume, the notes ring out, good balance. Much nicer than than the Ibanez I had previously, which sounded flat and lifeless unplugged (but sounded very good amplified). I assume the solid Spruce top has a lot to do with that.
I play it through a POD X3 Live (which I also use for my electric) on an acoustic patch, running into a Behringer KB1200 keyboard amp for stage monitoring, which has a DI out that runs into the board. It sounds gorgeous through that setup. I received several comments at church the first time I used about how good it sounded.
One thing I found was that this guitar was more feedback prone than my Ibanez, which I'm sure is because the guitar vibrates much better. The feedback suppression takes it right out, with a minimal effect on the tone.
With the blend slider all the way towards piezo, it sounds like a good piezoelectric AE. The magic happens when you start to blend in the Aura image. It really does what it says - adds in a lot of the ambiance you lose in a piezo pickup vs. a mic'd guitar. It's hard to explain in words, but it does make a real difference. There is quite a bit of tonal variation between the different images.
It is still a piezo only AE, however, and lacks some percussiveness if you're banging on the top. If that's your style, you'll probably want a setup with an internal condenser mic in addition to the piezo.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
7
Action was a bit high for my tastes. My previous guitar had really low action for an acoustic and I got spoiled.
The finish is gorgeous - the natural binding around the edges is very attractive.
Reliability/Durability
:
6
I have one real complaint about this guitar. The nut that holds the end pin jack in keeps coming loose. The first time I changed the strings I took them all off, reached in and tightened it up as good as I could (not an easy task since you had to real inside), but it ended up coming loose again. I think I'll need to unsolder the jack, find a locking washer or something to put on it, and put it back in - hopefully that will hold it.
The Fishman preamp eats batteries quite a bit faster than the preamp that was in my Ibanez. I learned to unplug the cable when I wasn't using it, it need to be replaced after two Sundays (about 8am to 1pm, covering two services).
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Haven't dealt with anyone at the company.
Overall Rating
:
8
I've been playing for about 40 years.
I play in a church band; electric mostly, but occasionally acoustic in the Sunday service, and there's one service where I'm the only musician, playing the acoustic.
My previous guitar was an Ibanez EW20ASE, which was beautiful in figured ash and played really well, which I gave away to another member of our band. For a replacement, I was looking for a solid top A/E that had an internal mic or something more than just the under-the-saddle piezo pickup, to get a more natural sound. I had a budget of $1000 and tried some of the lower end Taylors and Martins, but frankly wasn't impressed.
After a lot of searching and research I found this guitar with the Fishman Aura preamp and decided to give it a chance. Ordered it online sight unseen.
Other than the two negatives - action
