Ovation Tangent Series T357 Reviews 3

I played it four or five times in Sam Ash on 48th Street in Manhattan, and at Sam Ash on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Slim neck and slim body, very comfortable to wear. The neck is skinny, but not crowded, even to my big fingers. Stylish design and finish will make you stand out. The sound is pretty lively and responds well to hard, percussive single-note flatpicking.

This Ovation has even less warmth than most, thanks to the multiple off-center soundholes (which make the sound less focused), thin body, and fibreglass back. I've played one or two copies of this guitar where the action feels too high at times but not at others, which leads me to believe this guitar's fret-hand comfort shoots straight down when your strings aren't brand-new. Playing fingerstyle on this guitar isn't great on the right hand thanks to the narrow string spacing.

Quite good, though it doesn't strike me as being exceptional. My Balladeer 12-string feels and looks much more high-class.

This guitar, the first in the Tangent series, certainly makes a stylistic statement, especially if you're in a metal band that uses acoustics. For folk, country and solo singer-songwriter styles of music this guitar's sound is a little too harsh, but for rock, blues and punk, this might just be the thing.

Derek Mok rated this unit 3 on 2004-01-24.

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