PMRazr wrote:
I Have been playing guitar for about six months now, mostly on a 40-year old Yahama Nylon.
I Think it's time to move on to a decent steel-string acoustic guitar. I Have been shopping around for a few weeks now and decided that for my budget (+- R3000) I should try the secondhand market and this is what I found: a Ibanez AEL-40 problem is... It's from 2003, is it too old? The Condition of the guitar is perfect and it's for sale in PTA so high humidity isn't a problem. (I think)
But
low humidity might be. In fact low humidity is more likely to do permanent damage to a guitar - but solid woods suffer (or potentially so) more than laminates and some wood combinations more than other.
This guitar is solid spruce top, laminated maple sides (if it were solid maple they'd make sure you knew about it). Might not be too badly effected by changes in humidity. If you buy it and if you treasure it then humidify in the winter.
Maple... play it first. Acoustics with maple back and sides often have a very bright sound. You might like that, but it's not everybody's cup of tea. The back and side wood do effect the tone. In my experience the effect is diminished with laminated back and sides, but it's still there. So try before you buy. In fact you might do well to go to a decent shop and see if you can try out (or have them play) different body shapes and different wood combinations so you can get an idea of the sound differences and try to get a handle on what you like. My two acoustics both have spruce tops but one has rosewood back and sides and the other mahogany and I like them both, but they have different things going on.
RE the electronics. In my experience Ibanii have electronics made to a Fishman design but not actually made by Fishman. They generally give a pretty decent plugged in tone, but the electronics tend to crap out.
