Pyle Resophonic Acoustic-Electric Guitar 6-String Sunburst with Built-in Preamp - Includes Hard Case & Accessories Kit for Professional Performances & Home Practice

Search on this item from other Amz sellers, and you'll find far more – and more mixed – reviews than in this listing. But I'm delighted with mine, so far – surprising value. Jerry Douglas wouldn't buy this, but it's perfect if you're just dipping your fingers into dobro.PACKING: Arrived in an oversized wedge box, enclosing a snug styrofoam coffin all around the guitar (including its top). No waste-reduction award for the styrofoam, but the guitar arrived fully intact.FINISH: Ridiculously gorgeous at this price. Beautifully applied 3-color sunburst top finish. (I'm assuming laminate woods all around, but the outside layer is straight-grained spruce.) Neck & back are nicely grained mahogany with a rich, dark natural stain. Fretboard is good ol' rosewood with an interesting diagonal grain. Neck has butt and scarf joints, but you have to stare carefully to find them. The top has 3 tiny color imperfections on or near the binding, but no one will see them but me.SOUND: Sounds like a biscuit-bridge resonator. Not a lot of acoustic volume (see ACCESSORIES), but the piezo pickup & 3-band EQ are effective in tailoring the amplified sound.PLAYABILITY: Action seems deliberately set medium. It's high enough to play slide, but low enough to play fretted (although that's a chore on the upper frets). The 1 real flaw in my copy is that the nut's high-E-string slot is cut too low, so the slide frets out on this money string. But inserting a little shim from a direct-mail plastic card works fine as a temporary fix. The nut isn't glued on, so it's easy for my guitar tech to remove it, to build up that slot or replace the whole nut. But that might not even be an issue, because see ACCESSORIES.ACCESSORIES: If you're buying this to play slide dobro, you might want to buy a Grover or AllParts "extension nut" (they're apparently the same) for as little as $6. This nicely raises the strings ~1/4" off the fretboard. Makes surprisingly little difference in slide playability or wolf tones, but by giving the strings more room to vibrate, produces significantly louder and richer acoustic tone. This is one way to get closer to "real" dobro tone. (Closer, but not quite there. Bluegrass dobro players get their rich honk by using a spider-bridge or tricone dobro, which you won't find in this price range.) Pro tip: Cut another strip of plastic junk-mail (or old credit) card, to protect the fretboard's finish where the extender's foot sits.Also, the "gig bag" included with this is a jokey thin dust cover with no padding. You can order a padded gig bag for under $25, or as little as $17 if you don't care about waterproofing, Make sure the specs are at least 41" long and 4" deep – this guitar's body, alone, is 4" DEEP before adding the resonator and bridge.The included strap is attractive, and the extra string set and clip-on tuner are nice to have when I need them.KEEPS ON GIVING: If you register your dobro with Pyle (online), they offer to send you an after-sale gift pack, containing a capo and a slide. Ask for it! The capo is a really sturdy Shubb-style capo. And the slide is fantastic: It seems to be steel plus a glass coating. So it gives you the rich tone of a metal slide, with the reduced string noise of a lighter glass slide.