April 26, 2024

Tag: NAMM Show

Acoustic Guitars / NAMM 2013 / Review

CEO-7 – Martin’s slope shoulder 00 for the ages

one manby one man0

The CEO-7 is Martin’s successful take on the prewar Gibson L-00, which remains more Martin than anything else. It is a slope-shoulder 00 for the ages.

“When it came down to it, the whole time I was playing the guitar I kept feeling like the CEO-7 is the Golden Era Series reissue of a pre-war Martin that never existed. One might say it seems like it came from an alternate universe where Martin had been copying Gibson designs from the 1930s, rather than the other way around. But just as Gibson’s square-shoulder dreadnoughts like the Dove, Hummingbird and Gospel sound little like a Martin D-18, the CEO-7 may have a certain trebley ring thing that reminds me of an L-00, but it also has a resonance and sustain unlike any Gibson I ever heard.”

Read the Full Review of the CEO-7

Martin CEO-7

Acoustic Guitars / NAMM 2013

Yamaha CGX102 – Summer NAMM 2013

one manby one man0

The U.S. debut of the Yamaha CGX102 nylon string acoustic-electric guitar with advanced electronics and a modest price.

Inspired by the historic classical guitars, the CGX102 offers cutting edge technology with its new System68N preamp, which features Yamaha’s contact pickup along with on-board tone controls and a precision tuner, offering “natural tonal reproduction.”

Priced well under $500, the CGX102 comes with a solid spruce top, and a body made from nato. Also known as “eastern mahogany,” nato, or nyatoh as it is spelled in Southeast Asia, resembles cherry in looks, more than it does mahogany, but it is a suitable replacement for mahogany on lower-priced guitars, especially when matched to a solid top and played through electronic amplification.

CGX102