Eastman Guitars T146

Here's a short review of a guitar I'm trying out. It's an Eastman SMD146. Just to get the formalities out of the way, I???m not an endorser for eastman and am not affiliated with the company in any way. I receive no remuneration for this review. The guitar was obtained through a private source also not connected to eastman. I???m considering purchasing it.
specs:

- 1.75" body thickness,
- 16" bout,
- 20 frets,
- 1.75" nut width
- 3 piece maple neck,
- ebony fingerboard,
- medium/jumbo frets
- 2 kent armstrong pickups,
- birdland tailpiece (this was a custom option)
- weighs approximately 6lbs.

In terms of sound, the guitar is very loud. You???d never know it was a ???thinline???. It???s easily twice as loud as my Ibanez GB10 and has the really sweet ???bark??? to it when you dig into the strings. This bark is what makes an archtop jazz guitar sound great when the strings buzz. Think Wes Montgomery / Peter Bernstein here. The dynamic range is really great. With my Ibanez Benson, when you dig in and you start getting fret buzz, you???ve pretty much hit the top end of the volume range. With the SMD146 you still have 3 or 4 more steps of volume you can get out of it. Plugging it into an amp is a very nice experience. It???s got a very sweet/velvety sound. Prettier than you???d expect for a guitar so thin. It???s quite as crisp or tight as the Ibanez GB10 ??? which gets its tightness from a thicker top ??? but it has much more in the way of acoustic tone and archtop warmth. Playing with the thumb is a heavenly experience on this guitar. Its tone reminded me of Wes??? tone on ???The incredible jazz guitar of??? recording. Being a full hollowbody with a carved spruce top, the guitar does feedback as you would expect. Being a little thinner does get you more volume before the feedback point but it???s not like playing a 335.

The guitar plays and feels great. Neck has a great feel to it. Thicker than a slim gibson but not as fat as a '59 gibson neck. A little thicker than an ibanez PM-120. The 2 pickup model has parallel bracing. I understand the single pickup version has x-bracing. Not sure what the differences are in terms of tone. The guitar is probably similar to an L5 CT but about 1/5 the price.

Finish is fragile. From what I understand, eastman uses something closer to a traditional violin varnish than the typical nitro-lacquer or polyurethane employed by most US luthiers. The instrument I reviewed is several years old and has some finish checking and a couple chips in the finish. This doesn???t bother me but you do have to be more careful with eastman finishes than with other guitars.

I'll take a couple points off due to the fragility of the finish but note that the thin finish is one reason the guitar is so loud.

Build quality is excellent. Equal to any Gibson or american factory guitar I???ve played.

Lifetime warranty I believe. I have not had to deal with their support but you can email/contact them directly through their web forum. Most folks rave about their support

5 stars. You'd have to pay 5 or 6 times the price and get an L5CT for a comparable guitar. A small luthier version of this guitar would cost you $5k used. It's a handmade guitar at a fraction of the made in USA price.

The Eastman T-146 is a thinline hollowbody archtop similar to a Gibson L5-CT. It is all solid wood construction with a single cutaway. Thickness and overall size is somewhat similar to a 335. Mine is a T-146 SM D. I believe the "M" stands for maple body and the "D" stands for dual humbuckers. The bridge pickup is probablly not worth much as most people will simply turn on the neck pickup and leave it there; this guitar is meant for jazz.

There is a single humbucker version available and there is a version available with mahogany back and sides. Both models have a spruce top. The fingerboard is ebony and the neck is 2 piece maple. Bridge is adjustable ebony.

The pickups are Kent Armstrong series 12. It has an ebony tailpiece and an ebony fingerboard. Really a nice guitar.

Accoustically the guitar is very loud. Suprisingly loud. Almost as loud as a full size archtop with no pickups mounted. It lacks a little low end compared to a full size archtop. The sound is similar to a Django style "D" hole.

Plugged in it has a full, rich, tone. It has a tendancy to overpower my amp and I realized that you need heavy duty speakers to really hear the true sound. I set the Tone-Tubby loaded 2-12 aside and plugged my head into a 2-10/horn Eminence loaded bass bottom. Suprisingly it cleaned right up and actually brightened up.

If you play this guitar you have to have an amp that can handle it. Using it with a Deluxe reverb is asking too much of the amp. Try a Twin Reverb with JBLs.

The low end that is missing accoustically makes a big appearance when amplified. It sounds much fatter than my 175. The 175 has more highs and less bass. The Eastman still has plenty of highs though. Just a great sound. It sounds more like Wes Montgomery while the 175 sounds more like Joe Pass.

This guitar didn't come without a few flaws. It needed a good fret leveling/crowning. No problem. The binding was coming off around the edge of the pickguard... a new one is on the way.

It has trouble accepting some strings through the tailpice. For me it's the "G". I run a plain .020 and about a third of them won't make it through. Also, the binding on the neck is a little ridge-y; not quite as smooth as the Gibson. Since I bought this new, I probablly could have got a new guitar, but I decided to just live with it, as it doesn't affect the playability. If this were a $6,000 L5-CT I would be howling; but for the money, I'm putting up with it. They really need to work on their binding though.

The wood is very thin which is probablly why it is so resonant. It reminds me of an airplane. Strong, in overall construction, yet very thin. I would suspect that a good bang on the body would easily put a hole right through it.

If this guitar were to endure the punishment that many of the Les Pauls I have seen went through, it would be a pile of toothpicks. It has a violin-like feel. You can depend on it if you are very careful, but a laminated body like a 175 would be much more durable.

Best I can tell, they have great support. I needed a new pickguard and one is on the way. Eastman has a forum on Yahoo where one of the bigwigs from Eastman answers questions and is very helpful. They also answer the phone at the U.S. office, but any warranty stuff is dealt with by your dealer. It has a lifetime warranty.

You have to take into consideration the amount of money you pay for a guitar like this. If you were to buy a Gibson L5-CT you would be spending in the 5-7000 dollar range. With an Eastman, for under two grand you get a solid wood carved guitar.

It seems that they don't have the binding down quite as good as Gibson, but the tone is there. It also plays nice and after a fret dress, it is buzz free with pretty low action. It has a nice tone unplugged and amplified it comes to life.

The Eastman website implies that you can play rock or jazz easily. I don't know about rock... this thing would feed back so bad it would render it useless. If you are playing a live jazz gig, the best thing you can do is have your amp set at a level that doesn't feed back, and one that you can hear. Then mic the amp and run it through the P.A.

Stick with your Les Paul for rock... this thing is a Jazz guitar.

Single pickup, beautiful sunburst finish, all solid tonewoods. On its stand, it looks like everything you'd ever want in a thinbody archtop.

Nice fat jazz sound with both a '66 Blackface Princeton and a Roland AC-60. Unfortunately it has poor note clarity -- notes blur in complex chords, playing amplified or acoustic. The Kent Armstrong pickup is exceptional, so is it the build? As the first reviewer noted, it's extremely resonant especially for a thinbody, e.g. more so than my L-5 which has beautiful note clarity and separation.

I had some problems with the neck and tailpiece.
- The nut measured wider than 1-3/4 by at least a 16th. The neck felt awkward playing fast runs both for this extra width and its peculiar shape.
- The neck join was set so deep into the body and at such a shallow angle that the pickguard actually blocked fingerstyle access to the first string. Also because of the neck join geometry, the pickup had poor adjustability as it needs to sit so low in its mount.
- The tailpiece string slots were machined so small that it couldn't terminate a couple string heads (T-I flatwound JS112). I've never had this problem before.

Too fragile for performance use (such a thin top...), also too resonant unless you use an acoustic amp with a feedback notch.

n.a.

I don't mean to be negative, but I did expect that Eastman would do a better job thinking through the design and build, e.g. like they did with their impressive John Pisano model. Overall the T146 feels like an early prototype that's still getting its kinks worked out. I've just ordered a T166 (semi-hollow T146) and I'm hopeful. The stop tailpiece should take the string heads, there's no pickguard to block fingerstyle access, and hopefully the partial sustain block and a heavier top (?) will provide the note clarity, feedback rejection and onstage durability I want in a thinbody archtop.

How exciting, I get to do the first review of this fantastic model.

I bought it new, serial number 008 (!) this year, 2006. This is the Eastman T146SM in Sunburst finish. It's a fully hollow, thinline guitar (1 3/4" thick) with a 16" lower bout. It's a single cutaway with 20 frets and a single Kent Armstrong humbucking pickup in the neck (possibly the same model as the one used in the Pisano guitars?). The guitar has a solid, hand-carved spruce top, solid maple sides, back and neck, and an ebony fingerboard, pickguard, bridge tailpiece and headstock veneer. It has gold hardware and a gold pickup cover. The bridge is floating and height-adjustable. The finish is laquer. It has one volume and one tone knob. It came with a very cool cello-style case which is pretty durable and protects the instrument well from bumps and bruises.

For this price range, features like solid, hand-carved wood and ebony/flame maple/spruce tonewoods are unheard of. A well-deserved 10.

This is where other companies need to worry about Eastman. Guitars this cheap that sound this good will put them out of buisness.

I'm a jazz musician. This guitar was intended to suit the modern acoustic/electric jazz musician, which it does beautifully. The set up is simple and easy to use. Acoustically, this guitar is louder than my flat-top. The sound is quite focused, very rich and very complex. With the tone down you can bathe yourself in warmth and with it up you get all kinds of acoustic ring and sparkle. I play it through a '65 BF fender Bassman head and a 1x15" cab. It sounds big and open and full through this rig, and really lets the instrument sing. This guitar has the richness and complexity of any horn or upright bass. It is indeed a far cry from the choked, sterile tone that has been the norm in the jazz world.

The guitar was shipped in the case, in a box. The box was opened in front of me, I took the guitar out of the case and it was perfectly in tune. I still barely ever tune the thing. The action is medium, and very even. The back was very well bookmatched and the finish is glorious. Nut and bridge were cut and set impeccably. Played great right away, still does.

This is a pretty delicate instrument. You can't knock it around or throw it into the crowd and expect it to come back with the finish still perfect, but it'll probably still be in tune. This guitar is certainly gig-ready. The electronics are very solid and the jack is dependable. The finish is nitro, and very thin, which is great for the sound and terrible if you want it to stay scratch-free. I am going to enjoy breaking this guitar, and love the finish just as it is. The 8 is because no, it probably can't withstand falling out the back of a truck as the criteria seems to suggest it ought to, but it will certainly withstand years and years of regular gigging.

This is very interesting for me, because while this idea was being thrown around over at Eastman Strings, I asked a question about the possibility of introducing a thinline guitar. They responded by saying that they had plans for a thinline guitar, but that it would be in the 335 style, that is, all semi-hollow maple double-cutaway with two humbuckers and a stop tailpiece. Based on the opinions of myself and several others on the board who posted their thoughts, they added a fully-hollow, spruce-topped instrument (almost identical to their current guitars except in body width) to the new models being introduced. I was basically able to tell them what my dream guitar would be. They listened very carfully and then introduced the model. And now i'm playing it. If that isn't legendary service I don't know what is.

For a long time I've been looking for a guitar that sounds like an L5, but plays like a 335. I found it. It has loads of acoustic character, but is excessively comfortable to play and is less prone to feedback because of the reduced width. The axe looks great, plays great and sounds even better. This guitar was an incredible value. I'm studying jazz guitar at a music conservatory and don't have a lot of money to throw around. Eastman has made it possible for me to play a professional-quality instrument for a price I can afford. Thank you SO much Eastman Strings, you are doing an incredible service to musicians everywhere.