Hofner Jazzica

2001 model purchased used. Hand carved spruce top with laminated flames maple sides and back. Beautiful sunburst, gold tuners with ebony tuner buttons, volume and tone knobs and ebony covered tail piece. Floating Kent Armstrong pick-up. Single cutaway with tapered body width, very comfortable to play. Only complaint is that the volume and tone knobs are mounted into the carved top.

Guitar sounds great acousticaly and when plugged in. I'am able to get a great acoustic sound for fingerstyle or a great darker jazz tone. Laminated sides don't seem to hurt sound. Have played it thru a Roland JC 120 and a Fender 1958 Deluxe, sounds great though solid state or tube amps. Comes with ebony foam insulated plugs for "F" holes, helps cut down feed back at higher volumes. Have several guitar players that own 1958 to 1961 Gibson L-7's, their amazed at the sound quality.

Guitar has no flaws, perfect construction and attention to detail. Fret board had srunk abit by time I got guitar. Minor filing and set up by my guitar tech and instrument plays perfectly. Pick-up has great sound. Came with top quality case.

Guitar is an archtop requiring standard precaustion, seems very sturdy. Has great case.

No contact with Hofner except sent an email about obtaining a owner manual. Received answer back within two days, no manual available at this time. They are working with Germany to obtain a reprint.

Great guitar for someone looking for a high quailty, great sounding archtop without paying a fortune. Would compare instrument to those costing thousands more, great value.

This Jazzica was bought used?perhaps a year old?in mint condition with a gloss natural finish. It has a solid spruce top, laminated curly maple back and sides that taper substantually towards the neck heel; the back is book matched and lovely. The neck is maple with ebony block inlays and a bound fretboard with medium/fat frets. The neck is slightly asymetrical?reminds me a bit of a beefly Les Paul's?with a slight volute at the base of the bound head stock. It has all the features of a high-end single cutaway archtop with cat-eyed f-holes. (Art nouveau?) The hardware is gold plated or ebony. The Schaller tuners have ebony buttons. The pickup is a floating Kent Armstrong mini-humbucker. The pickup is very quiet; and in conjuction with smooth tapered single tone and volume controls there are a lot of tonal options for a one-pickup guitar. The detail and finish work is near flawless: the heel of the neck is two-piece and there is a slight variation in the natural finish of the joinery; there is also a trace of filler near the binding of of the upper f-hole. But this is all nit-picking. The strap button at the top of the body mounts to the back of the neck heel?that throws the guitar off balance if it's not cradled by the player. But other than that, this guitar is exquisite. Unplugged, with round wound strings, it is loud and punchy I came with a hefty archtopped case that could survive a flight or two of stairs.

I use the guitar exclusively in trio with bass and drums?rock and roll pop tunes with a little swampy rockabilly. (My bass player likes Buddy Holly) I play through a newer Deluxe Reverb: volume on three (or four tops), bass/treble around six or seven with reverb and tremelo as needed. My only stomp box is a Pro-Co Rat. The guitar is sweet and clear. Again, the Kent Armstrong pickup is quiet and the pots are smooth. Because of the manageble stage volume I can approximate the twang of Fender on rave-ups or rockabilly tunes. The Jazzica looks cool in a bar, and I get a lot of compliments from plays and patrons with regards to its tone. Sometimes I play in a five piece with pedal steel and keyboards and those guys are decibel freaks so on those gigs I leave the Jazzica at home. I wanted something different and this axe fits the bill just fine.

This is a high-end archtop. German made; the attention to detail is superb. (Think Mercedes and BMW.)

Except gigs where I have to play loud, this is the only guitar I use live. To me it sounds best with medium nickle round wounds for the trio, and flatwounds when I play solo. (Flatwounds make the Deluxe Reverb's speaker rattle on the lower registers.) It's simple: one pickup, a volume, a tone... Damn near idiot proof

I'm pretty handy. And I live near Kalamazoo where Pete Moreno-formerly of Gibson, now repairing on his own and with Heritage?is fair, reasonable, and a super nice guy.

I've been playing since the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. At this stage of life I can have any guitar I want; I've amassed two high-end acoustics and a couple of the usual solidbodies and that's enough. I would definately replace the Jazzica if it's lost or stolen. In fact, I'm thinking of selling off my rock and roll guitars and picking up a second Jazzica because at around two grand I haven't seen anything that can touch it?I fear that right now it's way underpriced. (Are people really paying three grand for some of those low-end Gibson ES's or hollow body PRS? Nuts to that.)

2002 model, made in Germany
- Just received guitar after a 4 month wait, but it was really worth the wait.
- This Jazzica is sunburst, a beautiful subtle shade, with very fancy double binding around the sides, filed with abalone inlays, so cosmetically, the guitar is stunning and could be hung on the wall as a piece of 1950' art deco work.
-Solid spruce top, with great grain and straight lines; sides and back are laminated maple, with the top veneer as highly flamed. The laminated three pieces of maple sound as good as one solid piece that you would see on jazz guitars $6000+ in price.
With one floating Kent Armstrong P/U at neck, the guitar looks and sounds great both acoustically and plugged into a Fender re-issue 65 delux revrb as well as into a SWR California Blonde.
Tone controls are on the body, not on the pick guard, but are made of ebony as is the pick guard and tial piece, so you get a very woody, natural sound.
- The neck is very fast as it is narrow and relatively low in profile; the opposite of a beefy feel. For comparison, the DeAngelica NYL-2 has a noticably thicker neck.
- Most interesting about the Jazzica is the body itself; it starts out tapered near the neck and widens from the middle of the guitar, so the instument hugs your body better. At its most narrow point, the Jazzica is a wide as the NYL-2, but has more body depth from the mid section on.
-Frets are relatively wide, but not too high.

-Sound is wonderful for a $3000 retail jazz guitar; much superior plugged and unplugged to a NYL-2, which lists for $1000 more; plus the Jazzica has a carved top, whereas the NYL-2 has a pressed one.
- A wonderful jazz sound plugged in; you get get lots of tonal variation by adjusting the volume and tone controls.
- Acoustically, the guitar is wonderful and has quite a bit of sound output; with flat wound strings, the acoustic sound is soft as compared to my Gibson J-200 or Taylor 814c.This sound would change if you put on a set of round wound strings 11-52 gauge. I ususally plug the Jazzica in to the Delux reverb with the volume turned down to 3 and backing off the volume and tone controls for the Jazz work that I do. The guitar sounds better through the Delux as compared to the California Blonde.
- While the sides are solid, laminated maple as opposed to one solid piece of maple, the sound is gorgeous and I would challenge most folks to discern the difference between solid vs. laminated maple, other than a price difference of $3K-$10K

Came out of the shipping box in perfect condition and did not require any set up at the store , which is unusual. Not one flaw detected.
-Spruce top and subburst finish was impeccable and the back had book matched maple veneer sides.Superb craftsmanship!

Have had the guitar 2 days, but I would imagine it is a very hardy, well built guitar that should last years.
-Comes with a solid, wood case, which is very protective but would not hold up under airline shipping unless inside its cardboard shipping box.
I back up lot's of singers in the studio as well as live; it would be fine if I was only playing jazz, but most of the folks that I back up sing various styles, so I bring the Taylor 814C for folk style finger picking and the J-200 for more percussive strumming.

Too new to know, but the folks at Washington Music, where I've bought most of my guitars over the past 35 years are very helpful and supportive in fixing things.

I've been playing for 40 years, part time professionally; this is my first Jazz box and it is wonderful and attractively priced. You don't need to pay $6K or more for a good jazz giutar. I believe the Hofner Jazzica is under priced; it could easily list for $4K or more; so if you can find one, get it, because it wouldn't surprise me if Hofner significantly raises the price after a year, given the intense demand for the Jazzica and President models.