Epiphone revives the prestige of its 1930's guitars with the Masterbilt Acoustic Series. Today's Masterbilt Acoustic Series encompasses many of the most coveted aspects of fine guitar building for a remarkable price. Each Masterbilt guitar is constructed of the finest all solid tonewoods. The tops are braced using the 1930's wide X bracing and extra deep scarfing to produce incredible resonance. The joints are hand fitted and glued using authentic hot hide glue, and the bridges and fingerboard are constructed of premium solid rosewood. The saddle is compensated bone, as is the nut. This premium construction is capped off with deluxe appointments including gold open backed tuners, a tapered headstock and mother-of-pearl inlays to provide an instrument that is as impressive to look at as it is to play, feel, and hear.
The Solid-wood Epiphone Masterbilt EF500RCCE provides you with a solid cedar top along with solid rosewood back and sides that produces the ultimate sound in warmth, projection and clarity. Built for the discriminating fingerstyle guitarist, the EF500RCC features a parlor size body. A mahogany "Modern V" neck pays tribute to the great Epiphones of the mid-1900's, while the wider nut (1.750") provides perfect steel-string, fingerstyle spacing. A generous cutaway allowing effortless access to the upper frets, completes the package. The beautiful grain of the Masterbilt woods is enhanced with a natural satin finish.
The EF500RCCE features the eSonic2 Preamp System, providing a smooth, clear sound that you can take anywhere. Made exclusively for Epiphone by Shadow, the leader in acoustic amplification since 1971, the eSonic2 features studio-quality fidelity, unrivaled dynamics and greatly increased harmonic content resulting in uncompromised acoustic guitar realism. You can rest assured that it will keep working performance after performance.
eSonic2 Controls and Functions: The eSonic2 is equipped with individual EQ controls for each pickup. They are Mag EQ (Nanomag) and Flex EQ (Nanoflex). Each control has a center "detent" which can be considered a general purpose setting and a good place to start. Each control operates in the same way by increasing Treble up to 9dB when turned clockwise and increasing bass up to 9db when turned counterclockwise. However, these controls are not linear in that other frequencies (in particular mid-ranges) are adjusted as well. This "variable" EQ control allows you to better "shape" the sound. The blend control is your "mixer" between the Nanoflex and the Nanomag pickups. Use it to control the overall tone of the instrument as well as control the signals coming out of the Stereo outputs. By using it in combination with the EQ controls, you can really tailor the sound of the guitar to fit your playing style, venue and volume level.
NanoFlex Pickup: The invention of the Nanoflex pickup technology is the latest and by far the most important step in pickup technology since the first guy wrapped wire around a magnet to produce an electromagnetic field. The term "Nanoflex" refers to its ultra thin (nano-like) profile and its flexibility that allows it to conform to any surface shape. This assures complete guitar-to-pickup-to-saddle contact. Unlike other under-saddle pickups, the Nanoflex design utilizes 7 highly-sensitive and ultra-responsive layers of sensor material to not only sense the vibrations of the strings but the vibrations of the guitar body as well. This produces results equivalent to a condenser-microphone mixed with an under-saddle pickup. The Nanoflex is the first pickup to incorporate active amplification directly at the pickup. As a result, the signal does not pass through even a single millimeter of the wire and therefore, the signal quality is uncompromised. Combined with its 100% shielding, the Nanoflex is absolutely and completely noise free. This is different from all other acoustic pickup technology.
Nanomag Pickup: Ordinary magnetic pickups have been used successfully to amplify electric guitars for years but when used to amplify acoustic guitars, they fail to deliver desirable acoustic response. That's because magnetic pickups have a very narrow bandwidth with an over-emphasis on mid-range frequencies. The Nanomag, referring to its small size and its composition, is a completely new kind of magnetic pickup that combines 3 Samarium Cobalt magnets with on-board, active electronics to produce a low impedance pickup with absolute linear response and an uncharacteristically wide frequency range. One of the single-most important qualities that make an instrument sound the way it does is harmonics. Because ordinary under-saddle or transducer pickups fail to capture the very high and very low harmonic content, the true acoustic character of the instrument is lost. The Nanomag is able to capture all the harmonics - from the lowest to the highest - with incredible accuracy. All with ZERO noise or artificial coloration. This again is different from all other acoustic pickup technology.
Nanoflex/Nanomag Combination: While each pickup individually outperforms all others, the combination of the two is extraordinary. The Nanoflex captures string and body vibrations while the Nanomag, mounted at the harmonic-rich end of the fingerboard, captures all the string energy and lush harmonic content. Now, the acoustic guitar has never sounded so real and alive with all its subtle nuances and distinct characteristics.
