NGD: NE-Burst of Goodness

[Forewarned]

I wanted to get a acoustic for a while but I realised that I was going to be plugging in the acoustic a lot so I needed something that needed to sound relatively good. As I'm saving for other gear (read: gear-whoring), I didn't want to break the bank as well. In the end I went for the Ovation 2778AX (Korean made) in the New-England Burst finish and I'm very happy with the purchase. It came with a Kick-Ass case as well.

I'm no photographer but here's a few pics...





The contour cut on the belly.

Bad Shot of the sky-high action.






After playing it for a few days now, here's my quick summary.

Pros
- the OP-pro pickup in it is fucking awesome. A very sensitive eq on board in which you can really shape the sound. The tuner is dead accurate as well. I am really, really pleased with the plugged in sound. It doesn't have that horrible harsh thin tone that many acoustic-electrics seem to have. It has certainly exceeded my expectations.

- Very nicely balanced tonally (I'm talking when you're plugged in). You can hear every string and no notes get drowned out by the bass or the treble. I'm assuming the deep contour bowl might be helping with this.

- The bass response is of the lower strings is just so tight. It's really responsive. I remember reading a comment from Drew over on SSO from a very old ovation thread and he described the tonal quality as "aggressive" and I think that word certainly fits. I really like this quality though.

- Alternate tunings like DADGAD are really, really good on this guitar as there's that really nice balance and good projection as mentioned earlier and the bass response just kicks ass for drop-D.

- The contour cut on the back is a really good idea and solved one of my big gripes with other fully rounded back ovation models being that they would slide all over the bloody place. You couldn't sit down with the older models without them constantly slipping and this contour completely eliminates the problem.

- (Side Points) Looks beautiful. Case is sweet.



Cons
- When unplugged the acoustic sound is a bit meh.
There's nothing wrong with it. It will certainly do fine, but is nothing to write home about. If it didn't have the awesome electronics, it would be a guitar you'd probably put back on the shelf pretty quickly. It just doesn't really grab you and you'd probably think, "looks pretty, sounds a bit dull". I have a friend (who I also play in a duet with) that has a Taylor 314 (I think that is the Model) and her guitar is the exact opposite to this. Sounds fucking spectacular unplugged but sounds like total shit when plugged in. So if you are considering a guitar like an ovation it seems like you should consider how much you play plugged in as opposed to unplugged.

- The setup it came with is utter shite (Probably not ovation's fault. Most likely the store I bought it from). It's so bloody high that it's frustrating to play at the moment as it's taking way more effort to push the strings down to the fretboard. This is a easy fix though.

- There are tiny, tiny little divots on the fretboard binding around the 20th fret. There only about the size a hand-written fullstop (best analogy I could come up with) but there's about 4 of them so it's worth a mention.


That's about it. Once I properly set it up there will really only be two cons.
The most important thing is that it does what I need to do brilliantly and I'm very happy with it at the moment.
I hope I gave an informative review and if you guys want any info or more pics (I'm a shit photographer as you can tell ) then shout out.

[Sebastian]

That's a really nice looking guitar

[eleven59]

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Nice guitar

Two words for both you and your friend (especially your friend):

Fishman Aura.