JJB Electronics Pickups...

Babyfrank

I have a Tanglewood Sapling 3/4 size steel string acoustic, which I bought as a travel guitar.  The soundhole is too small for a standard size magnetic pickup, and the bridge would have needed routing of the saddle slot to let me fit a piezo, which I didn't want to attempt.

So, I did some searching online, and one of the alternatives that came up in another discussion on here was JJB Electronics contact pickups.  I sourced (via Ebay from the US) a Prestige 220 which was effectively a last option for me, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much from it. How wrong I was... it completely exceeded my expectations. The sound is great... it won't make your basic acoustic sound like a vintage Martin, but what it did do was give a very faithful reproduction of the acoustic tone of the instrument.  I was very impressed by the tone... there's no piezo "quack" like you usually get with an undersaddle pickup, and the overall response is great across the eq spectrum... I've heard contact piezos before that were trebly and tinny, but that is not a problem with the Prestige 220, plenty of bass is present to fill out the sound.   I was concerned about output level being too low, but it's comparable in level with the factory fitted preamp/pickup on my Faith Venus at 50% volume.  I'm using a Yamaha Magicstomp Acoustic as my preamp/effects box.

Also love the fact that it's almost invisible and doesn't spoil the look of the guitar.  Wish I'd known about their pickups before I drilled holes in my old 80's Aria acoustic to fit a side-mounted preamp and piezo/mic system, which never sounded that great anyway. I'm now considering fitting one of their pickups to this guitar too.

Disclaimer - I have no connection to JJB, other than being a satisfied customer.