D'Aquisto Avant Garde

The avant garde is a 17" non-cutaway archtop acoustic guitar. The back and sides are laminated maple, with a solid spruce top. It has a 25 1'2" scale length. It has a maple neck with a 22 fret ebony fingerboard. The fingerest, tailpiece and bridge are ebony. The guitar has a sort of art deco look, which I've never seen on a guitar before. The depth is 3 1/8. The guitar comes as a full acoustic. The finish is high gloss lacquer. It comes with a hard shell case. For a full sized archtop it's very light weight.

This is one of the best sounding archtops I've ever played. It has a beautifully balanced tone. The neck is comfortable and the action is fast. If you're looking for gorgeous well rounded tone, this is it. My only negative observation is that it isn't anywhere near loud enough to use as an acoustic guitar. I play swing jazz in 18 piece bands. You couldn't hear this in the first row without amplification. So...I put a Kent Armstrong floating pickup on a replacement pickguard(I didn't want to alter this instrument in any way). It is the closest thing to sounding like a Gibson Johnny Smith I've ever heard. Beautiful lush tones. It's a real pleasure to play this. This is strictly a jazz sound, pretty, full, open, bassy when you want to be, with a nice high end, and that Gibson bite on leads. This buries my Epiphone Elitist Broadway, and weighs in several pounds lighter.

These guitars are hand made in Japan. The fit and finish are near perfect, everything about this guitar is first class, with a price to match. The current list price is $4400. The bookmatching on the top and sides is near perfect. I can't criticize their workmanship at all. This guitar is as good as anything made in the US. The archtop is x braced. A technique developed by the late John D'Angelico. James D'Aquisto was his apprentice for many years, and founded D'Aquisto guitars after his death. D'Aquisto died in 1995, and aria of Japan now has the rights to make his guitars. Their construction is first rate.

This is a well made instrument capable of playing on the road. I wouldn't hesitate to play it without a backup.

D'Aquisto has no US warranty. Any warranty would have to be through the dealer the unit was purchased from. However instruments of this quality are very unlikely to ever have a warranty problem.

I've been playing for 50 years. I love this guitar. I would replace it if I had to, but they are extremely rare and hard to find. There are a very limited of these instruments made every year, and only a handful of dealers.

This is an update- I'm going to have a new bridge top made for the accutone to bring the B and E strings a little more in tune. I put an earvana nut on it to also bring the intonation all the way up.It currently has a Benedetto ebony pickguard with a Benedetto S6 with a volume control only. I adjust the volume control to get different tones and also get the right amount of bark when I hit it hard.

This axe makes me crazy! After 10 months, the sound has opened up considerably. It has enough bark to play good big band rhythmn, and yer it excels when I play chord solos. I've ended up playing it through a Tech 21 Trademark 60 w 4/10's. This is the sound I've waited for.

No surprises, this has held up beautifully on gigs. The neck didn't settle with high spots, unlike every other archtop I've ever owned.

i'm gigging with it, and it's just great!

I do wish Jay would email me and tell me where he got the pickguard from.

I'd still buy it again, and consider it a real bargain among archtops.

Non-electric, non-cut solid archtop w/ accutone bridge. A beautiful example of modern archtop design.
This is almost exactly what I was looking for except I wish it were available with a floating pu.Therefore a 9.

This guitar fits my style(s): swing, bop, blues. It came with flatwounds which I will leave on for now. Acoustically it sounds great.
I'll make a replacement pickguard with a pu and vol control. We'll see...

All good - now.
The set-up wasn't great. The high e and b strings were buzzing and it took me 2 hours to straighten everything out. Part of the problem was the "accutone" bridge which needs some attention and love - a design/function conflict?

I'd use this guitar on gigs. It makes a solid impression. But archtops are just not made to be banged around, therefore a 9

Good so far. I contacted the distributor about a replacement pick guard and they responded within 2 weeks. The manufacturer's website is not very helpful.

Great! Can't wait to hear the instrument amplified.
I've been playing for many years, and this one is a keeper. I compared it to other high-end archtops and it feels and sounds great. Yes, it's made in Japan (by Aria) but a comparable American instrument (sound & design) would have been way out of my league.

This guitar was made in Japan in 2006 at the Aria Guitar Factory. It is a 17" wide, 3" deep, non-cutaway archtop guitar with X bracing. This is one of a limited number of copies of a very famous groundbreaking archtop guitar, the first hand made American Axe to have no plastic whatsoever anywhere on the instrument. While paying respect to the old time archtop, it is very "Avante", hence the name. The build quality is excellent! The neck is joined to the body like a cello neck, so the top vibrates more freely than the average archtop. This also means that the fingerboard is raised, so access to the high frets is much easier than any other non cutaway that I've ever touched. THe action is superb right oout of the carton. The tailpiece is a massive piece of wood. I believe it helps contribute to the woody, mellow tone of this instrument. The headstock contains two cutouts. My luthier tells me that this cuts down on hot and dead spots on the neck.The bridge is an accutone, shich was invented by D'Aquisto. I'm very surprised at how accurate the intonaton is on this box.

I am a jazz/ big band player, who fell in love when I first saw the original instrument that was made for Hank Risan. It will be fitted with a replacement pickguard with a pickup and stealth controls under the edge. This will run through a Roland JC50 amp. I'll use it to back up a singer and also play big band rhythmn. The acoustic tone is very even. The top started to open up soundwise after about 10 hours of playing time. This is the first X braced archtop I've ever owned and I'm surprised by the balance of the tone.It is very full and will brighten up after I put my beloved DR Zebra strings on it, and have the action raised by my luthier. The other amazing thing is how delicate the sound can be if you lay off of it and pick lightly. It is very full at a whisper. Sustain is also much greater than any archtop I've ever owned. I cannot wait to hear the sound when it is broken in in about 6 months.

The build quality is fantastic. The kerfing inside is perfect, there are no finish flaws save a very tiny spot that doesn't have finish on it on the inside edge of onw of the f holes. The neck is one piece maple, flawless and does not feel wide even though it's supposed to be 1&3/4". The taipiece is ebony and maple, the pickguard is ebony and maple, and the headstock is just a work of art. The back pieces are beautifully bookmatched, as is the top. The body binding and neck binding are maple.It has a blonde nitrocellulose finish, mirror smooth. This is the most beautiful non cutaway archtop I've ever seen.I would recommend you google it and see for yourself.

Very solidly constructed and very light weight. This was bought to gig with. All the components are first rate and solid as a rock. I have never gigged with a backup archtop, and have never had a problem.

The entire D'Aquisto line is known for its build quality and reliability. The warranty is limited lifetime to the original owner.

I've been playing for 35 years, and gig with two other archtops. I sold my 1 owner mint Guild X700 to pay for this. That was a great guitar, but this is even better.I intend to gig with this and a Godin Jazz Multiac SA exclusively. I have to pinch myself to believe I got this! If it were stolen or lost, I would have to kill the thief and his/her entire family as well. I have no intention of buying another archtop, my last one lasted 35 years.I love everything about it........looks, action, sound and finish. I do wish that it came with another pickguard to mount a pickup on, or perhaps had a another pickguard with a premounted pickup from the manufacturer. If you have any love for archtops, this should be looked at and played if possible. If you are a collector, this should simply be bought. I have never played a finer limited production archtop, and could not afford to have one made because of an upcoming divorce. As you can tell, I couldn't be more thrilled.What a lucky find for me!