guitar ’ s body design ? I ’ ll tell you . The solid tonewood top with scalloped X-bracing as well as the solid rosewood back vibrates freely to produce the fine-tuned tone . Why does it vibrate so freely ? Because they are inset into the composite poplar sides . Huh ? Think about this for a moment . Laminated woods are stronger than solid woods . Lloyd Baggs has designed the 4-bolt neck to attach to the strongest part of the body ( the composite poplar wood sides ) and that creates not only a solid connection of neck-to-body but also allows the top and back tonewoods to vibrate freely because they are not having to also support the neck .
2 ). Plugged into an acoustic guitar amp – for this I used the new Circa74 acoustic guitar and vocal amp . This amp has 150 watts of power , and the AEG-1 sounded full and clear , even on low settings . The math adds up here as you combine this solid tone with LR Baggs ’ own proprietary HiFi Duet system . Which in this case has a Silo Mic , HiFi bridge plate pickups , and a HiFi Duet preamp that is all dialed in by Lloyd for this exact body shape . Wow – that is a onetwo punch ! Tested through an acoustic amp , this guitar passes easily .
3 ). Running through a large P . A . System – I took this guitar to a local church that has a great sound system that is sporting a brand new Allen & Heath Avantis mixing console . My good FOH friend there plugged me into a wireless guitar sytem , and let me roam the worship platform . Then we traded and let him play so I could listen through their L-Acoustics speaker system . From the audience ’ s perspective , again , the sound was full and the guitar tones were warm . The comment from my buddy was , “ This is the best sounding acoustic guitar I have heard in this church .” I ’ ll take that as an endorsement ! We turned it up loud , and no feedback whatsoever .
So we have covered the tone and pick-up system , how about the playability ? How does it feel ? The Performance profile neck is fast and thin . It has a 16-inch-radius Indian rosewood fingerboard , and the cutaway body design allows access to all 20 of its frets . The 1.7-in . nut width gives fingerpickers plenty of room to maneuver . The scale length is 25.675 ” and the modern C neck shape makes chording comfortable and it is easy to riff around playing solos .
The feel of the thinner body up against your own body is nice while standing playing on a stage . The guitar is a little heavier than you might think when just looking at it , but it ’ s definitely still comfortable . People of smaller stature will like it as it isn ’ t a large body shape like a dreadnaught .
To deliver the most authentic-sounding acoustic-electric tones possible the electronics system includes several stage-friendly features , including Volume / Mix / Tone controls , a Phase switch , mic trim adjust , and a battery level gauge .
Rounding out this stage guitar offering are Baggs ’ own custom-enclosed tuners for tuning stability .
A lot of folks don ’ t know that Lloyd Baggs started out as an acoustic guitar builder . Then as he chased the concept of acoustic guitar pick-ups it launched him into the leader in acoustic guitar amplification that his company is today . I have known Lloyd for over 25 years , and he has always been friendly to me and has been a big supporter of our magazines . Here is his comment about this guitar … “ My desire to faithfully amplify the acoustic guitars I was building as a luthier led to the creation of our pickup company . It became my life ’ s work to eliminate every obstacle to playing live acoustic guitar easy , inspiring , and fun . The AEG-1 is the realization of this philosophy and I ’ m incredibly
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