Product: EKO Manta
Price Paid: 50 USED
Submitted
05/27/2009
at
04:21am
by
rhei
Features
:
7
Italian made from -70s. This one is assembled from neck and body of the separed guitars which I`d purchased from different places years ago. I just screwed them together and I got a nice guitar almost without any further adjustments. Neck is made from five maple pieces, perfectly straight. Body is made from three pieces, maybe poplar or some other light wood. Two singlecoil PUs 3-way selector, tone and volume. Nice looking redburst. Bigsby-type bridge
Sound
:
9
Sound is great. Not too bright
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
9
Action is fast and neck is quite thin but I can manage that with my big hands :). This is about 40 yrs old now so the finish is chipped and volume pot makes noices when turning it. Bridge is not well designed
Reliability/Durability
:
10
You can play Hendrix imitation with this and then carry on.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Maybe you can fix it by yourself
Overall Rating
:
8
Old good looking playable thing
Product: EKO Manta
Price Paid: Free
Submitted
05/11/2006
at
04:00am
by
Pat
Features
:
8
This guitar was given to me for free by a friend who found it. No one could tell me what brand it was as the headstock was sprayed black. After some research i found it at http://www.fetishguitars.com/html/eko/solidbodies/index.html.
It was made around 1975 and looks kind of Fender Mustang/Jaguar/Jazzmaster like. Two P90 type pu's, 21 frets, One Vol, One Tone, 3 way switch. I gues the fingerboard is rosewood, and the neck rock hard maple. Don't know about the body. It is very light (but well ballanced). Bigsby type tremolo.
Simple features, but it does it's thing very well.
Sound
:
9
I play mostly hardcore and metal of the more extreme varieties (grindcore/thrash/death metal). The Manta is absolutely not suited for metal as the P90's are to noisy and the sound is too bright. It has an almost transparent sound. Using it with a Diezel or H&K Warp in full flight reveals a two layered sound. The distortion and an almost unplugged layer under that. However it has a "dirty" character to it that lends it to more "crusty" sounds. Sounds insanely dirty downtuned.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
10
I got it for free from a friend and the bridge was missing. I disabeled the bigsbyish tremolo (don't like those). Found a bridge that fit and adjusted the action. The neck is absolutely briliant (I like it more than the neck on my Ibanez Les Paul, Super Strat and BC Rich Warlock). Ekstremely fast, nice frets and stable. It can take any string gauge without touching the trussrod (wich is "spoke" type, and can be accessed effortlessly). I am amazed with the playability of this guitar (it just shreds, to bad it looks like a Fender Mustang :) ). The finish is of nice and has aged gracefully.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
This guitar is built like a battleship! The tuners are not of the highest quality, but keeps the guitar in tune. The electronics are simple and should not cause any problems. The guitar is very light, but feels extremely solid anyway. I would definetly trust it in a live situation!
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Overall Rating
:
9
I have been playing for 18 years (I am 33 yrs old). The other axes I have in my collection (Ibanez Les Paul, BC Rich Warlock, Selfmade Strat (Warmoth body, Scalloped Wizard neck, Wilkinson trem, Sperzel Locking Tuners, DiMarzio & Fender singlecoils & SeymorDuncan JBjr Humbucker in the bridge position). As I got this guitar for free and had absolutely no expectations regarding it, I would say I am amazed. It compares favourably with all the other guitars I have (and the Gibson SG I sold) when it comes to playability.
If i put a better pickup in the bridge position, it would be a mean metal axe disguised as a shoegazer/retro/grunge axe :)
