X-500 time

shihan

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I am one of the beneficiaries of GAD's recent fire sale. I'm the latest LTG member to own this fabulous 1984 X-500. GAD reviewed this guitar very eloquently here: http://www.gad.net/Blog/2016/11/26/1980s-guild-x-500/
I drove myself crazy for a couple of days thinking about this guitar before I told my wife I have to get it. I'm glad I did.
I never really entertained buying a x-500 before; my hope was to eventually find a player grade 175 or a NS 175B; but the opportunity to buy this guitar changed all that. I feel like I hit the lottery!
I was hesitant to buy it because, like a lot of you, I prefer a wider neck than this has; but it plays so easily and sounds so good I really don't care about the width. It came with flat wound strings, something I have had no use for in the past, but I really like on this guitar. Instant Kenny Burrell tone, that deep rich fat sound I love on all those Jimmy Smith recordings. Of course, it's primarily a jazz guitar, but it is capable of a wide range of tones. I used it in a Chicago Blues quartet format and it sounded great, really suited to cutting a deep groove for a harp player. Solos with the heavy flat wounds was a challenge, but sounded really good, very funky.
I have never had a guitar with a master volume before, but I find it a very useful device, especially for controlling feedback at gig volume.
In short, I LOVE this guitar. Wanted to play it for a while before I posted about it so I could get past my first impressions.
There are a bunch of Pics if this guitar around the forum, but here's a couple more:


 

walrus

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You are a lucky guy, shihan! Congratulations!

walrus
 

Neal

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Wow. Just wow.

The '84 has no soundpost, correct? How do you keep it from feeding back in a band setting?

I have been thinking about getting a preamp with a notch filter to fight it on my elderly full-sized archtops.
 

JohnW63

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I stared at that one for quite a bit. If I didn't have a NS 175B, I may have succumbed. Still, I am cheap. Never paid more than about 1000 for any guitar. Those two facts allowed someone else to be very happy. But...I really do like the tone of that sun burst.
 

Neal

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I stared at that one for quite a bit. If I didn't have a NS 175B, I may have succumbed. Still, I am cheap. Never paid more than about 1000 for any guitar. Those two facts allowed someone else to be very happy. But...I really do like the tone of that sun burst.

Well, then, you have a couple really nice $1000 guitars!
 

shihan

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Thanks, guys, I'm a pretty happy Guild owner right now.
Neal, you are correct, no sound post. I used it in a pretty low volume situation; smallish room and I was playing through a Princeton Reverb. I was careful about where I pointed the guitar, kept my fingers on the strings and turned the MV down between songs. Walter posted about this elswhere, and he plays much larger places regularly without problems.
 

GAD

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Thanks, guys, I'm a pretty happy Guild owner right now.
Neal, you are correct, no sound post. I used it in a pretty low volume situation; smallish room and I was playing through a Princeton Reverb. I was careful about where I pointed the guitar, kept my fingers on the strings and turned the MV down between songs. Walter posted about this elswhere, and he plays much larger places regularly without problems.

Feedback on hollow bodies is easy to manage. It just takes diligence and that quickly becomes habit.
 

guildman63

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I miss that guitar. At the price you paid you got a major bargain. That is easily my favorite burst of all those Guild put out.
 
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