GIBSON 2016 ACOUSTICS

TCat

Has anyone bought a 2016 Gibson J45 or similar? I was looking for something of the kind, and went to two large Gibson stockists in south UK. I had been watching many soundclips and reviews on the "Tube"--especially by Greg Koch--- and they just seemed to be the perfect choice. I was shocked to find, after looking at apprx a dozen guitars, that they all seemed to be poorly set up, with very high actions, and fairly lifeless sounding guitars..... If you spend around £2000 on an acoustic, should you then have to pay a guy to set the thing up properly? I know Mr Koch is a genius who can make any guitar sound good, but even with that in mind, I was surprised and disappointed in what I found to be the general quality of these guitars, given the starting price...................any views-advice...especially from owners?

TCat

sorry guys.....just come across a post down the list about J45s.............with some interesting stuff, but if anyone has more views, I would still like to readthem.

geminitiger

The 2016 j45 I'm selling didn't need much work,a little fret dressing around 7th-8th fret,i found the sound responsive and alive,on the other hand the 2015 hummingbird needed a bit more work and the sound is more compressed but I decided it's my keeper

Dave_Mc

i don't own one but the 2016 j45 i tried sounded really good. the setup seemed reasonably good as well- it maybe didn't feel just as solid as the taylors I tried, but i preferred the tone. I'm much more of an electric player and haven't tried that many good acoustics, so probably bear that in mind...

songman

I recently got me a J45 2016, standard model. I tested that against several others especially some TV's. The 2016 came out on top by a wide margin, as confirmed by everyone who was listening to me playing it. Actually I was so overwhelmed by the Gibson sound that soon after I started looking for a Hummingbird. The exact same thing happened tested a Hummingbird HCS standard model 2017(!) against two TV's and again the same conclusion. I use my guitars to accompany singing and since I got these two Gibsons my HD28V gets played a lot less. Price of the guitar has nothing to do with the setup. I have all my guitars setup by my luthier who knows what I want. Factory setup is an average, some are better (Taylor) coming form the factory but imho they still all need the personal setup.