Antoniotsai Archtop Semi-Acoustic

Made in 2008 in North Viet Nam. Maple neck, sisde and back. Cheap humbucking pickup, case probably left over from the VietNam war by some American GI.

The strings are .013's, and I am used to .009's, so it is not playable for me. There is no mention of this in the listing. The humbucker only works on the high E side, and buzzes like a chainsaw.
Acoustically, it sounds like rubbish. Way too bright, buzzes like a chainsaw, and is unbalanced. Produces unfazed harmonics. The worst sounding guitar I have ever heard. The sound is worse than Carlo Rabelli's cheapest model, and yes I have owned that guitar. It will not stay in tune. In fact, it can't be tuned. intonation is absoltuly horrible, booms on several frets.

The strings are about 1/2 off the fretboard and about an inch off the top of the guitar. The 5th through 7th frets are lower than the 8th fret, so it is unplayable. Fret buzz is off the chain on this one. Neck is warped and slightly twisted. Pickup fell off after one turn of the screwdriver. Ships with bridge unglued, that'll cost ya at the luthier, in my case $40 + tax. The action is so high my fingers hurt after 3 or 4 minutes. I also get wrist fatigue from the thin neck, which is warped. The frets are tiny and unpolished. I cut my hand on a one of the edges of the frets.

This guitar is unusable. Hardware is made in Viet Cong quality. I will give this away, if I don't use it for firewood on a cold night.

Guy is a real jerk, a rip-off artist, should not be allowed on ebay. That's why he is in Viet Nam, he would be arrested in this county for false advertising. Did I mention my shipping charge? One hundred fifty dollars.

Been playing 30 years. I know a rat when I spot one, this is it. If you don't believe me, check out the other reviews, we can't all be wrong. This is a pathetic, unusable piece of garbage that is not worth one tenth what I paid. I am embarrased by that too. I should have checked here at HC first. You have been warned! I have owned every major brand made, or at least played them, and even the worst of the worst sold in the US is better than this. How bad is it? I brought it in for trade to 5 guitar shops in the area, no one would accept it for trade bait, they laughed when they played it. That is all the enjoyment I got out of this. People who produce this low quality garbage should not be allowed on ebay.

semi hollow flame maple top with f holes , solid mahogany back sides and
neck, es 335 style only smaller , hardware not the best , tuners hold,
pickups very weak, some fret buzz, hardly any finish on guitar,inlay
on fretboard, headstock , front and back of guitar,

with stock pickups sound was bad , replaced with older gibson humbuckers
sounds good , not as much sustain as i would like

guitar has flaws in binding , chip from top edge, thin finish, string
buzz high frets, the inlay is first rate, i finished guitar and changed
pickups will change pots and hardware down the road.

am still waiting to see, many reviews about splits and cracks will wait
to see if it happens to mine, bought item knowing hardware and items
will need replacement, if it does not split or crack i will be very
happy with buy, with time and parts and shipping and cost of guitar
i have about 500.00 total in guitar, the inlay is outstanding if guitar
holds together guitar was built very nice , and will be a good player
and great to look at,

dont know

you will not get a turn key guitar from this seller, you buy his items
knowing it will be a project , you know it will have the cheapest hardware pots pickups tuners , but inlay work will be very good, have
just got 3 more of his electrics this week , they will all be projects,
but where can you get guitar this nice for 150.00 to 200.00 , the 120.00
shipping is what hurts the deal, when all said and done if guitars dont
split will be happy about purchase

Just a topup to an earlier submission.I must be a masochist but I still am a fan of Tonys Guitars because they so bloody pretty.I have 4 of his Guitars now and all needed a fretdressing,1 of them was very bad[unplayable].So Tony produces some dogs which is alright as long as he would call them by name.If he calls them "dogs" or "seconds" or whatever and informs the buyer about it is alright because the buyer can make a decision.To throw badly finished products into E-bay without warning is bad policy and will eventually backfire.Some of the products on E-bay have problems which
can even be seen on the tiny photos like spilled stain etc.An improvement in the qualitycontrol of these otherwise remarkable guitars is urgently needed

Behind the production of this guitars is obviously a larger team of people with very inconsistant skills and attitudes.The lonesome artist inlaying guitars for hundreds of hours is a very nice dream,but that is all.This guitars are of very varied quality and the range is from poor guitars with sloppy finish to better guitars with sloppy finish to good guitars with good [butnot very good] finish.When people buy this guitars they have to be aware of some facts.

This guitars need a change of pickups in order to get anywere.The stock pickups are very middle of the road which has to be expected.

This Inlay-Enterprise obviously gets the guitars from various luthiers in China.I bought a SG-copy with very nice inlay on a terrible guitar.It was useless and I resold it.But here it comes:I bought a Semiacustic which is made from SOLID timbers like a carved mahogony body and maple top.The finish was shocking,string-rattle,unfinished frets,sloppy use of woodstains etc,but the guitar had a very nice balanced feeling and was crying out for improvements.I gave it to guitar-guru James Cargill for a fretshave and a general set up,plus I asked him to change the pickups for De-Armondswhich came out of a Guild Guitar.When he was finished James rang me and told me that the guitar now plays like one of his $5000 Guitars.And its true, i love the guitar now for its incredible performance and would not swap it for anything.Rating after changes:10

Exept for the poor finish the guitar is very well built and because of the use of solid timbers justifies the price,BUT IT NEEDED WORK!

Communication a bit difficult,but we are dealing with language-problems mainly.

Before the changes the guitar would geta 3,after the changes I would give it a 10,but because of sloppy finish it gets a 8.
Do NOT buy this guitars if you dont want to invest another $300 approx. or if you are fussy what appearence is concerned.The price paid includes the improvements.

INLAID ACOUSTIC CUTAWAY ELECTRIC JAZZ GUITAR is how this was listed on the Antoniotsai ebay store. It is a accoustic guitar with two f-holes and a 9-volt pre-amp with EQ. It has absolutely awesome inlays the full length of the neck and a large sunburst inlay at the base below the bridge with light rays that streach to around the middle of the body. I had been watching this ebay store for a long time and this was the only one I had seen with these inlays. Love at first sight! An amazing looking guitar. It has a rosewood bridge, your basic asian sealed tuners with nice looking knobs, bone nut and binding on all edges of the guitar. The face and back of the guitar are really nice lacewood. It came with a hard shell case that had a nice exterior and handle. The interior looked ok new but it didn't look like it would hold up well in the long run. Antoniotsai claims to have manufacturing in China and Viet Nam. All five of the guitars I have bought and all of the accessories have been from Viet Nam. Not a big deal but you can be sure you are getting a product from Viet Nam.

I play mostly solid body electrics for rock/blues and only play accoustic occasionally. I had an Applause accoustic electric when I bought this that sounded ok but I replaced it with this model because I liked the look basically. I did compare them before selling the applause. The Anoniotsai sounded a little brighter unplugged but the Applause was louder. Plugged in, the Antoniotsai was much louder and had a much better EQ. I was very happy with the plugged in sound and it resonates well.

This particular guitar was OK when it arrived. It has a few blemishes in the binding and some sloppy gluing but overall, very typical for this price range. The strings on all of the Antoniotsai guitars I have bought (5 total) need to be replaced immediately. They are usually rusted, sometimes badly. There was a little fret buzz but not too bad. Overall, I think I got luck with this one.

When I first got the guitar it didn't come across as sturdy to me. Although I am use to solid bodies, the Applause I compared this to felt much more road worthy. Since I don't play live and planned on babying this guitar I was ok with it. I had read other reviews warning about problems with the wood not being dried correctly and warping, cracking and other structural problems. I immediately put a humidifier in the case and put it in a humidified room since I do live in a dry area of Southern CA. I thought this would keep the problems away. I bought this in Oct. 2006. It is mid January 2007 and a large crack has now formed formed in the face from the inlays near the rear strap peg to the bridge. The crack goes all the way through the finish and is in the beautiful lacewood. I am also noticing that much of the inlay is starting to have gaps where the wood is pulling away from it. I can hear other reviewers saying "I told you so" as I am writing this. Why did I think I would be the exception?

I have purchased 5 guitars, a beautiful strat neck (that warped before I could ever mount it) and numerous accessories. They have always returned my emails but it takes a day or two sometimes. I just tried to make my first claim on the warped neck mentioned above. I only paid $54 for the neck so it doesn't make sense to ship it back to them for warranty repair. I tried to see if they would give me a discount on another one but they jacked the price up to where I would pay more for it than I paid for the original, even after the discount. The neck looked great when it arrived but was useless within two months. My only consolation is that it warped before I put all of the work in to mount it correctly. At least it died quickly. I imagine this accoustic will slowly self destruct. It is very sad to watch. The reality here is even if you followed through with the warranty and shipped it back you would be out a huge amount of shipping $ with no guarantee that it would just happen again.

I am 43 and have played off and on since fourth grade. I don't play in a band but I have around twenty guitars at the moment and have owned more than I can remember over the years. Some notible models I have are a Parker nitefly, Ibanez Musician & ST100, Tokai Talbo, godin Solidac, Phiga Casta and some Gibson SGs in the past. I am not a luthier but I do a fair amount of set up and repairs on the guitars I have. I can't repair what has gone wrong here. My take here on Antoniotsai is don't buy any of the accoustic instruments, period! Every thin wood item I have gotten from them such as pick guards and truss rod covers has warped. Sealing and lacquering them hasn't helped. All five of the models I have purchased have variing degrees of fret buzz from mild to unplayable. I have had better luck where the fretboard inlays don't run up the fretboard intersecting the frets. When the inlays are centered between frets it seems to be much better. I have had some luck with the neck thru solid bodied guitars with the understanding that they are projects that need work to be good instruments. I will try and review some of them as well. At three months into ownership I would give this a five overall. If it continues to crack it may not even be art anymore. Somebody teach these guys to dry their wood properly before putting all of that work in. Proceed with caution!

This is a solidwood semi-acoustic archtop guitar, modelled on a well know Gibson jazz style guitar. It is in Cherry sunburst, with a dragon motif inlaid into the neck.. It has a tune-O-matic bridge with stop bar.The tuners are grover style no-names. The chunky neck neck is around 1 5/8" at the nut and 2 1/8" at the pick up end. I would say they are 22 medium frets, not thin but not jumbo. It came in a stylish, (but not robust) hard case. It was made in Vietnam in 2006.
It has a 3-way pickup switch, 2 volume knobs and one tone knob.
The 2 pickups are both humbuckers, make not known. The electics are passive. The body is maple with attractive quilting? eeefect on front and back. The neck is described as hard maple and the fretboard is rosewood.. I give it an 8 for features because it has the features I wanted plus the dragon inlay, but as to the quality of those features--- read on.

This section is almost immpossible to evaluate due to action and finish issues. being as fair as I can the pickups sound as good as I would expect for this price of guitar with a range from muddy to bright and with a little adjustment a nice warm jazzy sound or a bright jangly sound can be found. Unplugged it is not any louder than my solidbody electric, maybe because the top is quite thick and there is a heafty lump of wood sandwiched between the top and back. Unfortunately because of the actionnad fit only part of the neck is playable and I am unable to give a good mark in this section.

This section has limited the evaluation of the last section because the set-up and finish is so poor that only part of the neck can be played. When this guitar arrived from the factory, there was condensation in the case and the strings were rusty. The neck where it joins the body, had what look like cracks in the wood, and the fit of the set-in neck had big gaps between the heel and the body that are filled with a thick varnish or whatever they use to finish the body.
The frets were (are) in an awful state. Some are bent, many have been cut at an obvious angle so that one fret is not parrallel to the next one. They are not all at the same height so it is not possible to set it up and be able to play past the 5th or 6th fret. One of the volume knobs was falling off. The final finish is quite nice, but to call this a handbuilt guitar may be factually correct, but then so is a dug-out canoe. The inside woodwork is very rough. Overall impression is that it has been made by a first day blind appentice and then sent to the finishing shop to make it presentable.

maybe this guitar would last if it were playable who knows?
The hardware and strap buttons seems cheap but adequate, and the finish is thick enough and smooth enough to look good, but time alone would tell, and I havn't bothered putting a strap on it.

I contacted Antoniotsai imediately it arrived and listed the problems.
I sent photo's of the neck and they said,"Oh dear it must have been missed on inspection". I said I couldn't afford the ??150 postage both ways to let them repair or replace it, so they suggested getting an estimate from a luthier, and they would pay part of the costs of repair, which I then did. He estimated ??250 for the neck cracks and said he couldn't tell what the fretwork would cost until he dismantled it. The estimate cost me ??15. I kept Antoniostai informed at every stage and we seemed to have a reasonable relationship until I told him the likely cost to make it playable. At this stage he suddenly wasn't getting my emails and couldn't understand English, and eventually offered me $10 towards the ??15 cost of the repairs! After all those emails, and his admission of faulty work, I did what he was probably counting on,- I just gave up and left him negative feedback on ebay. I think I had exhauted my options and was flogging a dead horse. In his reply on ebay he said,"what's the problem? send it back for a refund"!!
One bit of advice I would give to anyone buying one of these guitars is to hold back from leaving feedback until you have had the instrument a couple of months because I have heard so many stories about them drying out and cracking once they leave the humid climate in which they are bulit. Beware of buying from long distances, if I send this guitar back for a replacement it will have cost me ??352, due to high postage costs and I may still end up with a lemon.
If I send it back for a full refund it will still have cost me ??150 postage.
Another similar guitar from this seller sold the same week for ??100 including postage, so I think they could have given me ??100 refund, and still not been too much out of pocket, but more importantly they would be preserving their company's and their product's good name.

I have been playing around 5 years just for my own pleasure and I have a Peavey Indianola elecrto acousic, a Palm Bay Shreding machine, and a Sundown tube amp. I wish I had asked if the frets were realy bent or if it was just a bad photo, but I think they would have sent it anyway going by my experience. I would pity anyone who stole it to play. The main thing I dislike about this guitar is that it sits in the corner and reminds me that I was foolish enough to part with over ??406 USD,($271 + $135 postage)and it probably isnt worth stripping down for the hardware,LOL