Gold Tone Duolian

2006? Steel bodied resonator prototype. NOT one of the recently introduced Beard signature models, but a relative, I guess. Covered in grey powder coat, even the cover. Palm rest unusual in that it's screwed onto coverplate so it can be removed without taking off entire coverplate. 19 frets, 12 to the body, rolled in f-holes, Beard (spiral) cone, truss rod, bound fretboard, white pearloid kidney tuners, black headstock with Gold Tone label inlaid in abalone, along with a cool moon, stars, coconut tree abalone inlay. Maple bridge on a biscuit style cone. Not al ot of frills, but very solid and does what a steel guitar should.

Here's why I bothered to write the review. Tone is AMAZING, best I've ever heard. It did NOT come this way with "Beard factory set up," which was in fact pretty awful. I had to do some tweaking, but what I've ended up with is just a gorgeous chimer. The construction of the steel body is seemless and a monument to simplicity (I had to get inside to clean it up, so I know).

NOT well set up from the factory/dealer. One of the 4 screws holding on the palm rest was loose in the soundwell, so the cone gave off a horrid rattle any time the strings were sufficiently tested. I opened it up, reglued the screw, reangled the cone a tad and now the sound is as noted above.

Better general construction than ANY of the other Asian-built resos I've owned (Johnson, Dean, Regal, Fender, Liberty, etc.) Also, best action set-up of any reso I've ever owned (above, plus Nationals, Dobros. Incredbile. This is pretty much the only true reso I've ever had that plays as easily as a regular acoustic and darn near as easy as an electric. It's TOO low for heavy slide work, but chording is a breeze, even up the neck, plus that tone...

Grade is because they advertise U.S. set-up by Beard as being a plus--here it slipped by quality control.

It would take some serious abuse to do anything to this guitar. Even the powder finish is tight and unlikely to do more than get a few scratches in a few decades.

Purchased from Pick and Slide music off of Ebay; he obviously gets these specials/prototypes etc. from the factory. It is under warranty (1 year), but doubt I'll need to use it.

Here's the deal...this thing was a STEAL at this price. Even though this is standard price point for Asian imports, this outperforms them all. I had just got rid of a Delphi--too much money invested, too heavy, time to let it go. Put a lowball bid in on this and was surprised to win it, even more surprised by the tone once I got it set up properly, the utteer ease of playability, and the overall quality--and simplicity-of the instrument.

Since it's a prototype, there probably aren't a lot more out there, but there aren't a lot of reviews of Gold Tones here either, so I wanted to add this to say: *****I expect that their resonators in the $600 range are EXCELLENT values and I'd definitely try to play one and see for yourself before you spend 2 to 3 times as much on a National or a Dobro.***** Best of all, it's lightweight steel, not bell brass, and it projects as well as any of the heavy clunkers. As you can tell I've owned a lot of resos, been playing about 7 years, and really stumbled into this but believe it will be my alpha and omega from this point forward. If it were stolen I'd weep cause it's probably impossible to replace...then I'd look at the handsome Paul Beard nickle-plated versions for consolation