Aria AW 35CEN

new model, not yet displayed on Aria's website, made in China, boutght at West Coast Music, Vancouver. Features are: solid woods, spruce top, mahogany back and sides, cut-away, I can bar chords at 15th fret, measures 4 inches deep at neck joint, expands to 4 5/8 inches midway around the guitar, comes with enclosed tuners, and X-TN battery operated pre-amp/pickup with bass, treble, mid, volume, presence controls and tuner, has strap lock as well. Guitar did not come with gig bag or case, I bought a used case from another store. Guitar comes with D'Aquisto made strings, more on these later. Now I know some of you are saying to yourselves, "Oh no not some cheapo made in China guitar - not interested". Well you could not be more wrong. Yes I know about some of the crappy setup guitars, I bought a made in China Burns Cobra, and sure enough that guitar had real problems, high fret, uneven frets, whammy bar not setup properly, cheapo nut, cheapo saddles, barbed wire for stings. But you cannot generalize about a guitar from its place of manufacture, because this guitar is just superb, excellent in ways guitars thousands of dollars more cannot equal. The tuning is excellent, intonation bang-on up and down the neck, frets are even, smooth edges on both 1st and 6th string, no buzzing, excellent for strumming and fingerpicking. Guitar stays in pitch, does not drift down like the Larrivee D-03E I used to own, which refused to stay in pitch, slid down 1 fret on all strings. Tension is just right, not too loose and sloppy, yet not too tight like the aforementioned D-03E which required 250 pound weight lifter muscles to bend the strings. I cannot say enough good things about this guitar, it is simply amazing. Sound is rich and richer. Played through a Roland AC-60 acoustic guitar/microphone amp, I made it to heaven and did not return...

I compared this guitar to a $2700 CAD Guild D-55, which I thought was pretty good and was going to buy it until I stumbled across this beautiful Aria instrument. At $369 CAD I had to pinch myself, asking "What's the catch?" What the heck is going on here? I went around to other guitar stores and tried 3 other AW-35 guitars, 2 did not have the pre-amp/pickup, were not cutaway, and one was the exact same model. These guitars sounded ok, but did not have the beautiful tone of the one I bought, woods from a different tree? There is no question of the sweet top end, rounded tone, smooth like no guitar I have ever heard before. Whether strumming or fingerpicking it does not matter, the high end quality tone is there for all to hear. The sound does not degenrate at the higher frets, it is consistently terrific everywhere on the neck. Now about the strings: To me on extreme the Elixir strings are the worst sounding strings in the universe - brassy, totally lacking in sensitivity, just harsh to the max. I would rate D'addario Phosphorous bronze as better than Elixir, but these strings, which were the ones I used up to now, are also brassy, not harsh, but nowhere and I mean nowhere as smooth and well-rounded as the D'Aquisto strings that are on this Aria guitar. I did not think, I could not conceive of the fact that string choice would make that much difference. But I wrong. Do yourself a favor, if you want smooth rich tone, get yourself a set of these D'Aquisto phosphorous bronze strings. You will hear the difference just like I did, and you will shake your head as I did, saying "AAAHHHHH".

I just experienced listening to a $4000 Bourgeois instrument, but this Aria guitar sounds sweeter, especially the top end. The sound is not particularly loud, but I wasn't looking for a loud guitar, what I wanted and what I got was a gorgeous tone, but it is loud enough. I have played it live, and people in the audience have asked me if this guitar was less than $3000. It destroyed $4000 Martins, Gibson rosewood SJ-200 which is over $3000 CAD, and the most expensive Larrivee in the city could not even come close to the tone of this Aria, simply no competition. If I had been told that the price of this guitar was $3500 I would have believed it. I admit I was extremely suspicious when I was told the price was $369 CAD. This is just crazy I told myself. This guitar is so much better than anything else I have heard that to give it only a 10 is insulting. It is head and shoulders and body and legs above anything else in Vanoouver for whatever price the most expensive Martin is selling for. It just makes a joke of Taylor, Gibson, Martin. I simply cannot believe my luck. Maybe my karma is coming around, cause I quit the video game industry recently, turning around very high pay to go full force with music. I have spent over $15000 on some expensive junk, I call them junk - Taylor's, Martin's, Gibson's, Larrivee's - because once you hear the real thing there is no going back. I dunno if I will find another Aria AW-35CEN that sounds this good, if I do I will buy it. Westcoast Music "cherry picks" their guitars, they do not accept guitars that don't have excellent playability and tone. I am returning to that store in a week or so to hear another of these they have ordered to replace the one I bought. But maybe lightning only strikes once a lifetime. I never thought it would happen to me, but thank you Aria, thank you Westcoast Music.

It is all good, very very good. Excellent tuning, intonation, smooth action, no buzzing, great fret work, beautiful finish. "Made in China" you say with a sneer? Well this guitar is as well setup as anything you will find in the USA, it is a model for other acoustic manufacturers to emulate. Aria has been building guitars for a long time, and they have learned, improved, refined. Gibson has no idea of quality control, their latest batch of guitars are a disgrace to American workmanship. They should go and pay Aria to teach them how to do things right. Or go pay a visit to the beautiful American midwest to the Reverend guitar company, which has the same high quality craftsmanship. It is not where the guitar is made, it is who the people are that are making them. Quality is quality whether it is American, Chinese or Martian...

I have played it live, it sounds great everywhere, even at the beach with howling winds and rude traffic. Nothing can take away from the rich even smooth tone, even a crude beginner can get great sounds from this guitar. Solid strap buttons, I depend on this guitar as much as I can depend on any inanimate object. Built for the working musician, who gives a damn about his sound

Well the customer support does not really exist. There is no contact number on the Japanese or American website. I called long-distance trying to find out about the strings which sound so good. I had to go through the Canadian distributor for Aria to find out that the strings on my guitar are made by D'Aquisto. I then called back the manager of Aria USA to find out whether they are are 80/20 or 100% phos. bronze. He told that, but was not pleased when I told him I found out it was D'Aquisto that makes the strings for Aria. I then called up D'Aquisto to find out if they did a special run, used a different alloy for the Aria strings. NO I was told, Aria is putting their own name on D'Aquisto strings. What the heck is all that about? Dunno, why do they care if I spill the secret? Do they need the extra money that they get from customers buying Aria strings (which are D'Aquisto strings)? Jeez fellas, dummy up guys! This guitar has received no promotion, no publicity, it is though Aria is trying to hide the fact that they have made this guitar, no mention of it on their website, I tried a Google search for this model and nothing came up. Wow, what a way to do biz ha ha! Thank you Westcoast Music, Vancouver for trusting your ears instead of the hype you read about in guitar player and the like.
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I have been playing guitar for over 40 years. This is the only acoustic that I currently own. I have a Reverend Slingshot Custom which I love dearly, am gonna buy another Reverend guitar and their amp. If this guitar was stolen I would slit my wrists. I am going to try and find another one of these that sounds as good as this one, to have as a backup, but I dunno if I will ever have this kind of luck again in my few remaining years on this earth. I write bluesy stuff, that is what my hosting website is trying to promote me as, but I write equal amount of ambience material, and some folk. I love this guitar like crazy and I dunno how many beaters, expensive crap I have bought and rejected in the past. Finally my karmic event wheel is spinning in a positive direction.