I was in a hunt for a really good acoustic-electric guitar for the past 10 months. I tried several larrivees, Taylor, martin and newer Gibson models at Long and Macquade and Tom Lee considering a budget of 2-2.5 only. Brand new price causes always an aversion in buying.
Then this baby popped-up in Craigslist. Blue book lists it at 1500-1900 used(excellent condish) and MSR in 1998 was 2700.
This is a Gibson EC-30 Blues King Electro made between 94-98. Mine came from the last batch of 1998 . The newer model is now the J185.
Anyway, quoting Gibson's site, this guitar " comes equipped with a high quality saddle transducer pick-up and "Pre-Fix" pre-amp, with onboard controls, giving players from all genres full command of their sound. Controls include volume, brilliance, treble, contour, bass frequency, notch, and a phase switch. And complementing this are an Ebony bridge, bound Ebony fingerboard with Mother of Pearl parallelogram inlay, a bound headstock and gold tuners". Mine comes in black.
The neck feels like a 58 Historic ( which I like). Comparing this to a Taylor 615ce, I would say that the unplugged sound of the EC30 is a notch louder and more balanced comparable to a Gibson SJ200. Though I admire more the very simple yet nice Expression system of the Taylor, I could mix and match the onboard controls of the EC30 to get the tone that I want.
I am very excited to plug it into a higher model acoustic amp. I am currently using a Fender 30w acoustasonic and overwhelmed by the sound.
Thanks for viewing.