Open Box Fishman Aura Spectrum DI and Acoustic Guitar Preamp Level 2 197881316051

This is a very nice, solid, well built unit. It just didn't improve the sound of my Gretsch G5 to my satisfaction. I'm actually getting better sound for my acoustic through my Fender Tone Master Pro. Unfortunately, I'm going to return it. I'm sure it is ideal for most users though.

The Fishman Aura makes any run-of-the-mill acoustic-electric guitar sound like a million bucks: crisp, clean, rich, full tone dripping in zingy definition. Compares very favorably with the sound of a Fender Acoustasonic --which makes sense, seeing as how those guitars also use a similar Fishman technology to enhance their sound. I run an open stage and this makes getting an impressive tone out of an unfamiliar array of amateur-to-pro level acoustic guitars a breeze. My only quibble is I'd love it to also carry some basic reverb in addition to the sound banks, EQ, tuner, and compressor, but as-is it's a real difference-maker.

I think this DI can make any acoustic guitar sound good. It enhances your pickup, gets rid of quack, and controls volume for loud or low output pickups. It has a great compressor and mellows the guitar sound if you want to.

Great DI tone box , Traded up from an older Fishman Platinum . The Spectrum imaging tone box is amazing I paired it with a Fishman Matrix tone/Volume control under saddle Pickup on a 1967 Martin D35-S. I play finger style lead and rhythm in a Traditional/Contemporary church band. these units have impeccable tone ,balance and clarity and sustain. Really cuts through the mix. I highly recommend each.

Overall, I'm happy with this purchase. The imaging processing does add a more dynamic and realistic acoustic tone when plugged in straight to a PA in live gigs. Other features, like 3-band EQ, compressor, tuner, feedback notch filter and XLR DI output are all really valuable if you do a lot of acoustic performances. It's also very quiet, no discernable noise or hum even at pretty loud volumes. On the down side, it's pretty pricey, and when I demoed it in the store it was kind of fiddley to dial in the best sound. I really had to try a lot of different image presets and tweak the blend knob to get it sounding good enough to justify the expense. Most importantly, it sounds best if you can load images for your EXACT guitar make and model into the user banks. Once I got it home I downloaded the Fishman sofware and found a bank of images for my Taylor 210e, which immediately improved the sound over the factory bank images and made it much easier to dial in a range of good sounds. So I'd recommend checking that first before purchasing (you have to download and install the software to browse available images). Still, even without an exact image of your guitar, it does offer a fair improvement over the bare pickup sound, it's just more difficult to dial in the best tone. With it's other features, it's still worth the price IF you do a lot of acoustic shows and want the best sound without too much hassle.

It did offer many sound variations. But to me I was able to EQ my Martin acoustic equally as well using my mixer EQ settings. It was easy to set up and make various adjustments. I messed around with it everyday for one week but really did not find but just a couple of sounds that I liked. The sounds it offered were not at all what I thought they would be. I expected more for the high price. The tuner was not all that great.