Yamaha AEX 520

This guitar is brand new, I bought it from a music store employee for half of it's list price. Made in Taiwan, don't let that discourage you, this is a price/performance winner without a doubt. The Alder body is semi-hallow constructed with a nice looking lightly flamed maple veneer top. The neck is Maple with a Rosewood board and light satin finish on the back. Body also has two f holes and is shaped like your basic single cutaway jazz box only smaller. A little bigger than a Les Paul with maybe a bit more thickness in the body depth. Equipped with two mini humbucking pickups with covers, one volume, one tone control (the reason for 7 rating, I would prefer volume and tone for each pickup, but that can be installed by myself, so no big deal). Stop tailpiece/tune-o-matic bridge. Tuners are not marked with any brand but feel smooth and seem decent. Hardware is gold and looks good with it's Gretch orange finish. Neck scale is 24.75" with 22 medium size frets. Neck contour is a medium U shape.

I'm used to playing Strats and Teles so this thing sounds pretty fat to me. In the store when I was trying it out, it ran through a Peavey Classic 50/212. The sound was clean with just a hint of overdrive from the pickups which sounded real good for swingin' style blues. For the most part I play through a little practice amp at home, but on Sunday I play in a church band through a Rivera 55/112. The church is a huge room with awful acoustic qualitys so it's next to impossible to get a good stage sound. So I have yet to play with the Rivera in a more suitable environment. But I'm sure it would sound good. I like to play all styles of music and I think this guitar could cover it. It's dead quiet when not being played.

This is the category where this guitar rates with instruments far more expensive. I honestly have not found a thing wrong with it, and I'm fairly picky. The finish is very nice no flaws, though not as smooth as, say a PRS. But in this price range, hard to beat. The binding around the front edge is also flawless. Far superior to an Epiphone etc... The nut, which usually on budget guitars are pretty lame, is close to perfect. I had to do some minor touch up on the high E,B and G slots for string pinching. Other than that, good. The neck is a bolt on with a super clean fit. Instead of a neck plate like a Fender, the neck screws mount in recessed bushings. Slick. Once again I must say, this guitar is sweet for the price (700.00 list).

Feels extremely solid, I have complete confidence all around. I'm sure the gold plating will wear off, but I hav'nt seen any that won't.

I don't know anything about this category, have not dealt with Yamaha, but have always liked their products.

I have had a love/hate relationship with the guitar for 24 years. I highly recommend you check out this guitar if your looking for a hollow body Country Gent type axe and are on a budget. As I stated before the only thing I would change, and I might, is a seperate volume and tone control for each pickup. One other thing that may concern some players is that fret access past the 15th is a little tight.