Samick Greg Bennett Guitars

[arno_byr]

It's the Korean mass production one. It's sounds very warm, precise and definite, however less powerfull than the original classic 57 of the real L5, that a friend of mine owns.

[Sacco]

Woops!!

The nut was busted at the high E. (this guitar had 13s since day 1, also from the first owner)

It was in its stand and I heard PLACK!! and "tin tin tin tin" (the piece of nut)

Ordered a Graphtech sturdy Tusq nut, the original one seems plastic

[BeBob]

The JZ-4 has a short (24.75) scale, which I think is a significant difference in comparing it to a long (25.5) scale guitar like the Emperor Regent. It's sort of an apples to oranges thing.

Well the price is right, but the one I had sounded completely dead, with no wood tone. Played well though.

I have owned several of the inexpensive Samick manufactured archtops over the years, and they all shared a few common traits -- they were very well built guitars, with good fit and finish. They played exceptionally well, but they were all heavy laminate guitars with heavy synthetic finishes. They all sounded completely dead unamplified with absolutely ZERO wood tone.

Comparing two ends of the spectrum:

I used to own a Samick HJ650 Artist Series, which was sort of an L5-CES clone. I've mentioned several times on the forum that that guitar had the tonality of a brick. Acoustically it was tonally worthless. And the pickups were awful. On the bright side it has outstanding fit and finish, it was a great looking guitar and it played well. But unplugged it had no redeeming qualities as an acoustic, that guitar clearly needed to be plugged in to justify it's existence. Unfortunately, the stock pickups were crap. Realistically speaking I think it could have been a decent guitar if I had bothered to spend the money on two good pickups for it, but ultimately that killed the appeal of the Samick as a value instrument. I wasted no time getting rid of it, I returned it to GC within a few days of receiving it.

Fast forward several years and I bought another Samick, this time a D'Angelico EXL-1. I have to confess, I bought the EXL-1 because I liked the way it looks. It was more like the HJ650 than most people would care to admit, as those two guitars are more alike in terms of construction, finish and tone than they are different. The EXL-1 is a great looker and has great fit and finish and excellent playability, but it also scores a solid ZERO on the woody-tone axis. It's stock pickup is also pretty marginal. I think the guitar needs a pickup upgrade. If you play it unplugged, it won't turn heads. I think the guitar needs to be plugged into reach it's full potential.

Ever since I missed out on a Epi Emperor Regent a few years ago I have always hankered for a 17" with a floater.

Take my comments in perspective -- I don't really like thick laminate guitars with thick finishes and floater pickups, because none of them sound the way that a floater is supposed to sound ... in my mind, at least.

All things considered, I think it all boils down to what you really want out of an instrument. My experience with Samicks has been that their acoustic tone just isn't there, and the floater tone just isn't there either. The construction and the finish are so heavy that they won't give you any acoustic "woody" tone. But if you plan to play them amplified, then the guitar's playability and your pickup selection are what really matters, and if the Bennett scale length suits you, I think it's worth considering.

But to keep it in perspective -- I also own an Korean Emperor Regent by Unsung and it really scores on woody tone. It's construction feels lighter, the finish feels lighter, and it gets much closer to that woody + electric JS vibe than the Korean/Samick DA. The ER is far superior tonally to any of the Samicks I've owned, my DA EXL-1 included. If you are sorry that you missed out on an ER and that's really what you want, my advice would be to keep looking for an ER. IMO it's a much better sounding guitar than any of my Samicks have been, but ONLY if you can deal with the skinny Slim-D neck profile on the Epi. IMO the skinny Epi neck is a definite drawback and the Samicks feel better to me even though they don't sound as good. The result? I play my EXL-1 because it's playable for me, and I don't play my ER because I don't like the skinny neck. But the ER sounds better, no contest.

[Sacco]

Just installed this bridge, the previous one compensated the G up and the B down but with flat strings the whole compensation needs to be different.

I also think it looks elegant.

I sanded the bottom of this one against the guitar top and each side touches the guitar a lot more than other bridges. The result is a louder guitar that is also more responsive in terms of dynamics and brightness.

[Sacco]

Ok, after trying over and over with different bridges nothing really worked intonation wise. It was not really pleasant to constantly hear some notes slightly out of tune across the fretboard as you play a melody and notice the G string is not really behaving. Other strings were a tad bit compromised too.

Truth is, across all my guitars with TOM bridges their saddle positions are all different, so I'm gonna stop wasting my time searching for the perfect fixed bridge.

At the end I just went back to the original TOM bridge on this one. The acoustic sound didn't change a whole lot to be honest (I paid close attention while switching bridges), nothing that could be a deal breaker. The only sad thing is that I liked the other bridge aesthetically.

I guess another way would be to cut my own saddle out of a blank, but honestly I'm tired and don't have a good bench to work on things like that.

[Sacco]

Alright, so after finding the right intonation curve with the TOM bridge it was closer to the Goldo model. So I swapped it to that and got it practically perfectly intonated.

BTW, the TOM bridge sound indeed sucks! ....real bad, makes the guitar really dull and lifeless and rattles like hell. So forget what I said before.

[mambosun]

I have a JZ4 bought in 2010 and still feel happy with it, even though it seems not to be of the best “millesime “as some posters has reported earlier. I have to admit I never had the opportunity to compare it with a real Gibson Wesmo, but anyway can't afford it. Furthermore, my talent as jazz guitarist being rather limited, I'm not 100% sure I would have ever found a clear difference between my asian clone and the “real thing”.
Soundwise, with time, I learnt how to domesticate the JZ4 tone by selecting the right pick, adapting my playing and making some upgrades such as a cutting the top to fit a Classic 57 or swapping the rather clinky, stock ABR style bridge for a rosewood one. This , with rubber washers stuck in between resonant strings (portion between bridge and tailpiece) were enough to tame the rather slightly trebly acoustic tone.
Of course, a minor intonation issue came off, such as B and High E strings being a bit too sharp, but this was solved by slightly tilting the bridge.