The TL;DR is that it's a great guitar and is a keeper.
Here’s the full review for those interested in the ramblings of an internet stranger.
The photos from Sweetwater did a great job capturing the figuring in the neck and maple top. It looks equally good in person. I could find no flaws in the finish. The gloss has a perfect glass-like surface and the satin / oiled wood surfaces are silky smooth.
The oil finished roasted flamed maple neck is sleek. The flame on the neck and fretboard really adds a visual wow factor. As expected, it has a rather slim profile. I'm not overly picky when it comes to neck profiles, but anyone looking for a medium or large neck shape will not like this one. I haven’t taken measurements, but it feels much less substantial than either the Suhr Modern elliptical 0.8-0.85 neck or the Anderson even taper 0.78 - 0.85 necks that I have on some other guitars. It does not appear to have any taper to the neck thickness; it stays equally thin through the whole playing profile which is why I think it feels so diminutive. I have found it comfortable to play so long as I maintain good fretting hand posture.
The inlay work on the fretboard is very precisely done and looks nice and clean around the edges of the (admittedly cheesy) shield-shaped fret markers. The side dots, in contrast, look almost as if they were burned into the wood. Their edges are indistinct and the placement of some of them is a little off-center of the corresponding fret. They're fine from a functional perspective, but they look a bit out of place on a guitar otherwise executed with this degree of precision craftsmanship.
One of the few construction flaws I've found on the instrument is a small bit of excess glue squeeze-out visible from when they glued the nut in place. I was able to get most of it off by carefully scraping it with a hobby knife. There is still a small line of glue visible, but it is less obvious.
The stainless steel frets have a high polish and the ends are dressed in a way that I can't even feel them as I move my hand up and down the neck. The angle of the fret end bevel is more acute than that applied by Suhr and Anderson (but is similar to how PRS does their frets). This imparts a less obtrusive feeling in the hand, but it sacrifices some of the playable surface area. The strings are well spaced and I haven’t had them slide off the edge of the board, so it is a well executed configuration. The frets are 0.051 x 0.108 medium jumbos. I thought they felt smaller than that, but I measured them and they are as advertised. They feel noticeably smaller than the 0.057 x 0.110 jumbo frets on my Anderson and Suhr guitars. I attribute this distinct difference in feel mostly to the more aggressive beveling. They are tall enough that I can play without feeling the fretboard against my finger tips, so that is what really matters to me. I prefer the jumbo size, but these are also good. I checked the entire neck with a fret rocker and the only fret where I observed even a hint of movement was the 18th fret around the D, G, and B strings. That result is extremely impressive and is the most perfectly leveled frets I've seen from any manufacturer out of the box.
The compensated nut is cut a bit on the high side of what I like. I think that’s a safe choice considering you can easily reduce the nut height but it isn’t easy to make the nut taller. All of the nut slots are cut so that the action off of the first fret measures between 0.50 - 0.55 mm. I generally prefer the treble strings closer to 0.40 mm and the wound strings to be about 0.45 - 0.50 mm. I will probably bring those nut slots down a bit the next time I put on fresh strings.
Sweetwater shipped the guitar with what I consider to be medium action. It measured 1.5 mm at the 12th fret and 2.0 mm at the 24th fret on all strings. The neck relief measured at 0.004 inches at the 7th fret. The combination of the medium action and nearly perfect fret work yielded a very clear and acoustically loud sound with not even a hint of fret buzz. While that is a perfectly playable setup, I have gotten used to much lower action and it felt too stiff for my liking. I set it up to have tapered string height from 1.4mm at the 24th fret of the low E down to 1.2 mm on the high E. Even with the much lower action, every note rings clearly and I didn’t identify any notes that seem to lack sustain (dead notes). The guitar absolutely rips with this setup.
One thing I quickly noticed that I didn’t like was that the D string rang out quite loudly behind the nut. I could hear it coming through the amplified sound as well. It appears to be a common complaint online that the D and G strings ring sympathetically behind the nut on EBMM guitars. Thankfully, swapping on a new set of D’Addario 10-46 strings substantially reduced the severity of the issue. The G string now rings a bit, but not loudly enough to be heard in the amplified sound. EBMM sells a rubberized headstock string mute accessory for $5, so I grabbed one of those to silence the unwanted ringing completely.
The hardware is all of top quality. All of the pots and switches feel premium and reassuringly solid. The push - push controls are so much nicer to use than the typical push - pull style. Some of the tuning buttons on the Schaller locking tuners felt overly stiff when adjusting them, but that was easily remedied by loosening adjustment screws a bit. When putting on a new set of strings, I noticed that the lock nuts have a much finer thread than those in the Suhr and Anderson branded varieties that I’ve previously dealt with.
The bridge is a great design. It is responsive with a wide range of both up and down pitch bending. The tuning stability is excellent for a non-locking style and is easily on par with the performance of the Gotoh 510 I have on several other guitars. The factory configuration has three springs attached to the generously sized brass block. Two extra springs were included as accessories. I like that they thought to make every edge rounded so it feels smooth to the touch. The arm is the push-in type and it has an adjustable tension grub screw concealed on the block side of the unit. It is obvious that a fair bit of thought went into this component design.
In addition to the proprietary bridge design, there are several touches that speak to the high quality of the instrument. All of the back plates are metal (aluminum?) rather than plastic. The strap buttons have what appears to be a nylon washer rather than the typical felt washer. The black volume, tone, and piezo volume knobs are a proprietary shape and are made of metal with a smooth glossy finish that looks nice. They also added a textured rubber wrap to make them easy to use. The rubber wrap on my guitar has some oxidized areas almost as if the instrument were left in the sunlight for an extended period of time. Thankfully, these can be user replaced and are $6 as a set of three.
The custom fit Mono case that came with the guitar feels like it will afford ample protection from bumps, drops, crushing force,, and scrapes. I love that it has a specific cutout to accommodate the vibrato bar so you don’t have to take it off when putting the guitar in the case. It is nice and lightweight, but it is also very thick and kind of awkwardly shaped. The internal storage compartments are too small to do much with and I would have liked it if they included some back pack straps to allow carrying it that way also.
Congratulations!
