Product: D'Aquisto New Yorker Junior
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
10/19/2007
at
07:52pm
by
Don Berg
Features
:
10
Archtop electric with a 15" lower bout. The top is solid spruce with laminated maple back and sides. The neck is maple with a 22 fret 24 3'4" scale ebony fingerboard. The tailpiece finger rest and bridge are solid ebony. It comes with a floating pickups and a volume and tone control on the finger rest. The guitar is 2 1'2 inches deep. The finish is high quality gloss lacquer. Mine is almond burst, truly stunning to look at. It is a single cutaway similar to an L-5, only smaller and much lighter. It comes with Grover tuners.
Sound
:
10
This is a straight ahead jazz box. However the pickup that it came with was terrible. I replaced it with a neck mount Kent Armstrong. What an improvement. D'Aquisto uses the worst sounding pickups I've ever heard on a line of quality guitars. With the new pickup the guitar sounds great. It doesn't have the open sound of the full sized New Yorker, but it sounds great. I play it in an 18 piece swing band. It's a pleasure to play. I get nice woody sound when I'm comping chords. The light weight and fast action of this guitar make it fun to play. I prefer the jazz line D'Aquisto for medium combos, but this is perfect for big band swing. At my age hauling an full sized archtop around is no fun. Also having to reach around the large body is not as comfortable as it used to be. For small combos I alternate with an electrified Avant Garde. This guitar has the proverbial wooden drum sound that Freddie Green used to describe his playing.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
10
The fit and finish are superb. D'Aquisto guitars are hand made in Japan, and they are as good as anything made here. The finish is beautiful. There are absolutely no issues with the construction of this instrument. This guitar has a list price of $4100. It is not a cheap piece, and the quality is on a par with the price.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
This is as well made as anything on the market. I wouldn't hesitate to play it without a backup.
Customer Support
:
2
D'Aquisto has no US warranty. Any support would be through the dealer. It is highly unlikely there would ever be any warranty issues with instruments of this quality.
Overall Rating
:
10
I've been playing for 50 years. I love this instrument and wouldn't hesitate to replace it if necessary. However there aren't very many of these, and they are hard to replace. D'Aquisto has a very small dealer network, and very limited distribution. If you are a swing jazz player this guitar is a great choice.
