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trag-o-caster
September 7th, 2005, 12:56 AM
Just picked one up off of ebay for $300. It's beat though. A piece of the headstock was chopped off and re-glued back on. HUGE scratches in the top, looks to be intentional - like an angry girlfriend or something. The usual finish checking, and some cracks in the fingerboard binding.
But, it plays great and sounds absolutely KILLER. I have NEVER played an Ovation that sounded this good. Ovations have a reputation for being thin sounding, even with the deep bowl, which this is. I must admit that my experience with Ovations have been extremely limited. I've owned a shallow bowl Celebrity for years, and it sounds pretty bad acoustically. Plugged in, it depends on who you ask, but I think it's OK for what it is. I did a heck of a lot of solo acoustic gigs with it.
Someone over at the Ovation Fans message board had mentioned that certain Ovations changed their bracing around 1979-80 to the A bracing. The previous Ovations earned the company their reputation for putting out thin, plasticky sounding guitars. The A bracing Ovies were supposedly MUCH improved in the bottom end. I bid on this guitar based on reading about that. I was not disappointed! This thing just GUSHES out the low end.
What to look for is Legends (the Custom Legend was always A bracing), Balladeers, and most other models with no truss rod cover (which indicates the changeover from the previous design, and the newer K-bar neck, whatever THAT is).
But, it plays great and sounds absolutely KILLER. I have NEVER played an Ovation that sounded this good. Ovations have a reputation for being thin sounding, even with the deep bowl, which this is. I must admit that my experience with Ovations have been extremely limited. I've owned a shallow bowl Celebrity for years, and it sounds pretty bad acoustically. Plugged in, it depends on who you ask, but I think it's OK for what it is. I did a heck of a lot of solo acoustic gigs with it.
Someone over at the Ovation Fans message board had mentioned that certain Ovations changed their bracing around 1979-80 to the A bracing. The previous Ovations earned the company their reputation for putting out thin, plasticky sounding guitars. The A bracing Ovies were supposedly MUCH improved in the bottom end. I bid on this guitar based on reading about that. I was not disappointed! This thing just GUSHES out the low end.
What to look for is Legends (the Custom Legend was always A bracing), Balladeers, and most other models with no truss rod cover (which indicates the changeover from the previous design, and the newer K-bar neck, whatever THAT is).