Excel EX SS or Guild T-50

[Rickco]

Looking for small (15 x 1.75) semi hollow/hollow preowned under $1000. Have narrowed it down to the EX SS WITH tailpiece or the Guild. The biggest difference I can see is the neck radius 9" vs 16" and scale 24.75 vs 25 as far as playability. This is for a couch guitar and traveling practice, as such cosmetics not important pretty sure Id be fine with either neck. What reviews I can find seem to be positive for both guitars and from the looks and description I like them both. The reviews for both indicate theyre ok acoustically for practice which is a bonus. Im leaning more towards the D'An from descriptions etc but for my purpose they seem to be equal. I have some nice carved archtops so just looking for low cost and practical. It also seems the earlier yr the better for either? Im probably going to put light strings as Im also looking for ease on my old hands. Any intel greatly appreciated.

[rpjazzguitar]

I just looked at pics. One has a cutaway, one doesn't. That's a pretty significant difference if you want to play those high notes.

[John A.]

Those are very different guitars. Apart from the slight dimensional differences, the Guild is fully hollow with one single coil pick-up and the D’A is semi-hollow with two humbuckers. It’s not a full block like the Excel DC, but it’s still definitely not a hollow-body. If your priority is a good unplugged sound, the T50 is better. But if your priority is a versatile electric, the D’A is better.

With D’A, there are year to year differences in specs. More recent ones have Duncan pickups vs MIK Kent Armstrong in the older ones, which most people think of as an improvement. But I don’t think build quality has changed much. For Guild, I think you’d have to go way back to vintage US made ones to get something appreciably different from the current ones (especially the pickups), but I’m not sure about that.