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Vintage VEC 500 Electro Acoustic

 

Review of the Vintage VEC 500 Electro Acoustic by The Man in the Jar 

 

Features of the Vintage VEC 500 Electro Acoustic   

Tuners - Sealed unbranded mini-tuners with medium large knobs worked well.

Headstock - Simple squared-off 3-a-side paddle design. Nice and functional.

Nut - The white plastic nut abuts the fretboard and is cleanly finished.

Neck - The neck is made from nato which has a similar grain to mahogany, visible through the blue lacquer finish. This is a very comfortable neck for such a budget instrument and would certainly present no barriers to even an absolute beginner.

Fretboard - The rosewood fretboard has a nice stripey grain. The dot markers are traditional pearloid and the board is bound with white plastic.

Frets - The medium-profile rounded frets are well-finished. 

Action - Decent from the box for general playing and strumming. High register runs are a bit of a push.

Body - The big single cutaway dreadnought body has nato back and sides displaying that same mahogany-style grain under the blue lacquer. These support a solid spruce top. There is white binding to the front and back with added pinstripes on the front. The soundhole sports a pinstriped rosette.

Bridge - The rosewood bridge supports a plastic saddle which is compensated at the 2nd string. Strings are anchored with traditional bridge-pins.

Pickup - There's a piezo under the bridge.

Controls - The control panel is set in the upper edge just forward of the waist. As well as a battery compartment there's a Shadow LC-3 three band EQ with sliders for Treble, Mid, Bass and Volume. A tiny slider reverses the phase. This has no effect on the sound but can assist in eliminating troublesome feedback.  

Pickguard - Single-ply mock tortoiseshell teardrop.

Strap-buttons - One medium strap button on the lower edge.

Output - Set in the bottom of the body.

Finish - Nicely finished all round.

 

Sound of the Vintage VEC 500 Electro Acoustic 

Un-amplified the Vintage delivered a pleasing "harpsichord-style" sound with almost bell-like qualities. Initially I thought it lacked depth but as I played on I realised that the voice was well balanced across the strings. This translated rather well into an amplified state. Leaving the Mid slider in its central indent, I cut the treble a touch and boosted the bass a tad to produce a well-rounded, general purpose, electro-acoustic sound.   

 

Overall Impressions of the Vintage VEC 500 Electro Acoustic 

At the £130-ish price point this is definitely a budget-conscious instrument. But despite the compromises that are necessarily made to produce acoustic instruments at this level, the Vintage VEC500 delivers a good solid amplified performance and provides a charmingly distinctive acoustic voice.

Buy the Vintage VEC500

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