Premier Guitar | 9 years ago
Read the review: http://bit.ly/FaithNeptune
There was a time when the words “budget guitar” conjured images of a junky, laminated-wood dreadnought with super-high action and non-existent intonation. Improved quality control in overseas plants changed all of that. These days, budget guitars aren’t just good—they are starting to appear with design features that you only saw on boutique guitars.
The hand-built Faith FNCETB Neptune Baby Jumbo Cutaway/Electro is an excellent example of boutique influence in a guitar well under a grand. It’s designed by British luthier Patrick James Eggle, who has teamed up with Faith guitars to produce his designs at the company’s factory in West Java, Indonesia. If the Neptune is typical of the fruits of this collaboration, the affordable acoustic scene may have just become a fair bit more interesting.
The Neptune boasts all-solid-wood construction: FSC-certified Engelmann spruce for the top and the more unusual choice of Trembesi—harvested from the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia—for the back and sides. The spruce on our review model was high-grade, pretty timber with fine grain and a notable absence of irregularities. The Trembesi was uniquely and strikingly figured.
The simple but elegant appointments include a single-ring abalone rosette and a lone mother-of-pearl F inlay on the fretboard at the 12th fret, to say nothing of gold Grover Rotomatic tuners with wooden buttons, figured Macassar ebony bridge pins with abalone dots, and solid rosewood binding on the body.
To continue reading the review, visit: http://bit.ly/FaithNeptune
