I haven't had a proper acoustic in years since I traded away a Seagull. I've mostly used semi-hollow and hollowbody electrics for late night unplugged practice, but whenever I have gone on vacation, it has been a reminder that I could use a nice cheap acoustic. I was intrigued when I saw the Epiphone Masterbilt Century archtops, so kept an eye out for a used or on sale Zenith with f-holes. A cheap used one popped up with hairline cracks by the nut. These looked like finish cracks to me, but it was still more than I was willing to take a chance on. Then the seller slashed the price pretty dramatically, and I decided to take the plunge, and it arrived after FedEx resumed shipping once the polar vortex moved on. Overall, I like it. It has a strong clear tone, not super bassy. It projects well, and the piezo pickup and preamp sound true to the unamplified tone. After further inspection, I'm pretty certain the neck cracks are just in the finish, and they're out of the way of my hand. It looks like it took a bump in shipping as well (or else sitting in a truck in -30 F temps got to it) since there's another long finish crack across one side of the back the seller didn't mention. I can see a few flaws here and there in the edge binding, and one of the f-holes has some remaining uncut materials at the edge. So it's not perfect, as I would expect at the original price, but I'd definitely be careful about QC if I were buying one new. The calculated age vibe is a little strong too—everything's a little too evenly dulled; I assume as it actually ages that will mellow a bit. Otherwise it's nice: really gorgeous grain in the wood, nice satiny neck, good fretwork. Overall, it suits my aims pretty well for the price of a good pedal. I might be tempted to mod it with a gold foil surface mount pickup down the road just for fun, but we'll see.
