Johnson JAT-12-N

Korean made D`Aquisto New Yorker copy. Massive spruce top and flamed maple boby and sides. This guitar has natural glossy finish. Nice bindings, rosewood tailpiece and bridge and ebony (?) pickuard. Looks much like original. I bought it cause it was cheapest massive top guitar I found. Tuners are Grover Imperial. This guitar has one jazz pickup in neck position. 10 points features for this price..

Sound is very jazzy, but spruce top gives more attack and clarity than laminated one. Sound is much more acoustical. I have tried also tuneomatic bridge instead of original rosewoodbridge and I got better and more wider sound, strange ? Sound is probably not so bell -like than in the top of the line Gibsons, but very good indeed...You can think to use this guitar also on blues and Rockabilly (needs little customizing).

I take off 2 point cause I needed to make fretjob on guitar. Frets were poorly levelled and I got some buzzing sounds on some positions. It didn't cost much cause I did levelling myself. But if you are not customed to make this kind of work, you need to take your guitar to some luthier, and it costs.

This guitar seems to be ready for gigging. If you have original D`Aquisto, you probably think twice before you take your guitar on stage, but with Johnson you can do it once. I have used little 15 watts amplifier and haven't noticed problems with feedback. Inside body there is connection block between top and bottom straight under bridge. This will eliminate also feedback with amplifier. With heavy strings you can play acoustically. Spruce top gives nice attacking volume to your sound in this way.

I haven't needed yet...

This guitar is very nice in this price category. I tested some Epiphones and Gretschs before I purchased Johnson. Ibanez does have also some new jazz models, but I didn't get those on my hands. I have thought to customize my guitar with Bigsby and another(kind?) pickup(s), but this will become little later...I haven't hated this guitar, so I must give 9 points.