Product: Yamaha APX SPL I
Price Paid: 320 (Euro)
Submitted
11/13/2005
at
02:15am
by
debian
Features
:
8
Acoustic steel string guitar with built-in piezo pickup and preamp,
one volume, one bass and one treble control, 22 frets, top looks like stripoed maple, back has a plastic cover (reminds slightly of ovation guitars), two strap pins. Single cutaway.
I rate it 8 because it has all you need with the exception of a mid tone control.
Please excuse my english (i am no native speaker).
Sound
:
7
Acoustically this guitar sounds great, given you have proper strings.
The sound is more brilliant than dark, but bass strings do sound good and loud enough as well. Volume is o.k., no complaint.
Put to an amp the sound is too trebbly. You can use the tone controls to fix that, but i could not manage to get 100% of the good acoustic tone. The sound via amplifier is good enough to use it occasionally, but if you intend to play this guitar mainly with amplifier, it isn't the best choice.
I rate the acoustic sound 9 and the electric sound with 6.
Like many electric-acoustic guitars it develops unpleasant (and hard to control) feedback when played too loud via amplifier/p.a.
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
8
The frets are o.k., not too high not too low. The neck is also o.k., but it is a little narrow for my big hands (but thtas a matter of taste). Action is fine.
The red top with the shine-thrue tiger maple stripes looks great.
Changing the battery for the piezo preamp is difficult, but it is difficult with many electric-acoustic guitars.
With my strings (martin western .011) it is not 100% octave-pure.
Guitar is relatively easy to play for me as e-guitar player.
Set-up was fine when i bought it.
All in all it is a good guitar, so i rate it 8.
Reliability/Durability
:
10
Had no problems so far, therefor 10.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
No idea, never needed support.
Overall Rating
:
7
If you mainly look for a good-sounding accoustic-guitar that is easy to play (mainly for players that are used to electric guitars) that occasionally can be played via amp/p.a. without microphone, but mainly is played without amp/p.a., the APX-SPL1 is a really good choice.
Looks good, sounds good, plays well. In that case the rating is 9.
If you want to play your electro-acoustic guitar mainly via amp or p.a. (live, studio) the APX-SPL1 is only second choice because of its feedback when played too loud and because of its suboptimal tone controls. In that case i'd rate this guitar with 6.
