Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased this guitar recently & have spent countless hours comparing it unplugged, plugged in, and mic'd to my seven other all wooden body acoustic electrics. Here's what I've found:
1) APPEARANCE: First off, this guitar body is definitely made out of "formica" (I will be using this brand name to refer to the HPL, kind of like referring to all tissues as Kleenex or all photocopies as Xerox.) When you look inside the body - except for wonderful smelling sitka spruce braces, you are looking at the back side of a sheet of formica. The formica work is excellent - very nicely joined. They do an outstanding job in capturing the look of finely crafted KOA wood in a formica product.
2) SOUND UNPLUGGED: No where near close to ANY of my wooden body guitars. The sound is weak/empty, there's absolutely NO tonal quality to it. It's a unique sound, almost hard to define, I guess you could call it "dull, quickly deadened & lacking resonance." (Note: I have not changed strings yet, but a string change can only do so much!)
3) SOUND MIC'd: As you might guess, if the sound eminating from the body is poor, mic'ing it is only going to "amplify" the problem. Mic'd, this guitar sounds unacceptable. No matter how hard I tried to mix a good sound, I couldn't find one. Every one of my wooden body guitars beats this one mic'd. It would be easy to pick the dull thud-like sound of this guitar out in a blindfold test every time!!!
4) SOUND PLUGGED IN: AHAAA !!!! This is why I kept this guitar rather than exercising the 30 day return policy offered where I purchased it... This is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT GUITAR plugged in. I don't know how those Fishman folks did it, but the Fishman Sonitone pickup system completely changes the way this guitar sounds. I might even consider it the best sounding guitar I own plugged in. Look at it this way - do you buy an electric guitar for what it sounds like unplugged? Since I ALWAYS use my guitars plugged in I decided to keep this guitar. It's NOT hard to get a mix for the Fishman Sonitone pickup that sounds the way I think an acoustic guitar should sound like when it's plugged in.
5) ACTION: Right out of the box, the action on this guitar was very good. It plays as smoothly as any of my other guitars. (Note: Again, I have not changed strings yet, and I could probably expect slight improvement here with a good match-up with the strings.)
In closing: I am keeping this guitar based on the way it sounds plugged in. There are good things and some not so good things to say about the guitar. The all formica body is beautiful on the outside, but doesn't produce the tone of an all wooden body. I would NOT buy another HPL guitar - EVER.... but the body of #8 in my acoustic electric collection is made entirely of formica. Martin claims the stratbond neck will never warp - another PLUS. IT's a nice looking guitar - just don't buy it to use unplugged (especially in the same room as others playing wooden acoustic guitars.)
(p.s., I almost forgot to mention that even though the electronics do not include an onboard tuner that this guitar REALLY stays in tune. The tuning machines really hold this guitar in tune.)
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The Martin DXK2AE features a Hawaiian Koa HPL pattern textured finish top, back and sides and Martin's D1 style bracing for stability and resonance. The top, back and sides are constructed of patented high-pressure laminate (HPL). The result: G...
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