ZAD80OM Zager Guitar Review

Acoustic Guitar Review - zad80om

John Anthony Sloan <****emp@bellsouth.net>
Model: zad80om

How did you hear about this brand?
I, literally, accidentally stumbled upon it searching on e-Bay for electrics with very highly figured facewoods ala PRS, Michael Kelly, etc;

How does this guitar compare with your old guitar, other guitars, or guitars you've tried in stores?
As to my background, I have been playing guitar since I was 10 years old and will be 61 on October 7th. I'm a professional singer/songwriter (who works in medicine on the side, lol). I played a solo professionally around the Memphis area and on the road nationally for about 16 years before going into medicine. I've owned 5 different "high-end" Martins, and, only one (an actual prototype I lucked up on in '79 from Martin and Kurt Listug's first "Okay, we've built these, now let's go try and sell em' on consignment to music stores around the country road trip" in the late 70's)had remote similarities in tone to this guitar...but it had a jumbo body with Brazilian rosewood back and sides. I've also had 3 Larrivee's, but only one, a $4700.00 L-10QMC made for the '94 L.A. NAAM show, had remotely near the same resonant tone of this instrument in that it, too rang like a bell...but it was bottom heavy...and this guitar is as close to perfectly balanced as I've ever been lucky enough to find. There have also been several Tak's, Strats, Pauls, and myriad other "work guitars" along the way blah, blah, blah. My point is simply that I'm no novice by a long shot. That being said, this is easily one of the best guitars I have ever played! I swear to god I actually caught myself on tape night before last remarking to myself while in my studio assessing this guitar that I felt like I'd stolen one of James Olsens!", lol! In the end, I suppose that the best recommendation I can give for what you are doing Mr. Zager is to add that I'm unloading every single guitar and piece of gear I don't need just to enable me to buy a few more examples of your work in different body styles. I have never enjoyed playing a guitar any more nor suffered so very little for playing for so many hours on end!

What's your favorite part about this guitar?
The playability combines with the tonality to, literally "chime" as if the guitar had some kind of ingrained "vibrato-ish" trait. That's rather nice;) And the overall build quality and attention to detail rivals that of anyone out there. Really beautifully done green heart-of-abalone binding as well that, by all rights at this price point, shouldn't even be there.

If you didn't know the price of this guitar what would you estimate the price to be?
Having paid several times more than this for accoustics, I have never had anything that really rivaled this particular instrument so, $4000-5000+ I suppose. Collings-ish. Froggy Bottom-ish. This one, at least, is absolutely in that league of guitars. That's where it belongs.

How would you rate customer support?
Denny, Jr.'s tactful professionality coupled with an apparently genuine concern for whether you are pleased, happy, and, informed as a customer ranks the entire experience a ten. As to all the praise for the promptness of Denny Jr.'s replies to online queries, it's all warranted and well-deserved. In short, the entire experience was a very pleasant and impressive!

Would you recommend this guitar to others…if so why?
I have, needless to say, already done so as I have several friends that are session players that I've already forwarded the website to and will take mine along to each and every opportunity to turn any guitarist friends on to these because, if this one's an indication, they'll simply sell themselves. If enough of a semblance of this sound and playability gets imparted to the other guitars he builds as a result of the uniqueness of his bracings, tweakings, and general "String Science" set-up to allow them to all have these same sorts of characteristics, I don't know how anyone could possibly go wrong with buying his work.

Additional comments:
Speaking as a person with a life-long love of guitars and the playing of them, I sincerely hope my sheer joy at discovering Denny Zager's affordable genius somehow results in helping to sell a few more of these guitars because by turning out instruments of this caliber, he's certainly got it coming!...Very Sincerely, John Anthony(Tony)Sloan

Acoustic Guitar Review - zad80om

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