28yrs, Jam at home now, mostly classics from my youth, 3 Stratocastors, 2 Teles, 3 Les Paul's, and 2 SG's, plus a few Dime Bag D

Rock, country, blues, metal punk and classical

self taught guitar...jam at home and with friends occasionally

country and rock

The voice is clear, articulated with every string adding to the choir. Flat picking is easy and clean and frankly, you can be a little less accurate it seems since the fretwork is silent and if you're high on the fret, there's no nasty buzz. Very forgiving!

I like the robust colors that are like looking into a beautiful painting. The cedar version I got was calling me from the rack in the store where I saw it. I got the cutaway version as I need those upper notes for a lot of the lead work I play. The tuners are decently made and a good gear ratio for accurate tuning.

Like I said, the fretwork was impeccably done, nice and flat with no surprises in the neck at all. As in all situations, the neck needed a little adjustment - and it has a dual-action trussrod. Imagine that at this price point too!

The wood, even the laminated parts are truly awesome and well grained. I thought the clearcoat might be a little dense and therefor dead sounding, but it doesn't seem to keep the box from good reverberation and projection, even with .008 Earthwood EB strings. I can get really great volume from even these super slinky strings. The built in electronic tuner requires some field time to understand how it reacts, but once you figure it out, it's easy to be right on tune. I checked it with a strobe tuner and it's accurate!

I don't see how any electrified/tuner'd acoustic guitar with a case can sell for $299.00. OK, maybe a Johnson... ahem! I really didn't care that it cost a certain amount, as the voice and appearance was the selling point.

After purchasing the guitar - about a month or so - it developed a bad rattle in the neck. I knew it was the trussrod and I called Fender about it. I'm not sure the "tech" gave me good advice, heck- I'm not sure he had any real idea of the problem. I solved it myself by keeping at least a small preload on the trussrod all the time. These dual-acting trussrod are just different. Too bad Fender let a guy like him answer the phones. Maybe the real tech people all called in sick that day.... I dunnow. When I build a guitar of any kind, I at least put a couple of dabs OF RTV silicon glue on it to keep the trussrod quiet. C'mon Fender! Catch on to this little trick of mine.

That red cedar is an attention getter under the lights or in a dim bar. It's just "different" from most low- to midrange- priced guitars. When you hit the stage with something that looks this pretty, the audience expects a good performance. I tend to not buy most imported guitars as I've found them to have the typical "oriental voice", but this is bright with seriously sensuous overtoned. The only better sounding guitars IMO are Martins.

62+years. 20+ professionally, now retired but musically very busy

Blues, Country, Western, Bluegrass, Rockabilly, Oldies Rock, Jazz