Burny RFA 75 semiacoustic guitar

We thought you should know. Stylistically the RFA 75 sits somewhere between the Gibson ES 165
“Herb Ellis” and the Ibanez “Joe Pass” model of the late-1970s and early-80s. Chinese built, with a maple laminate body with parallel bracing, a maple neck and spliced in maple headstock and Grover style Keystone tuners, the RFA 75 is a short scale instrument with 20 jumbo frets on a rosewood fingerboard with split parallelogram abalone inlays. The set neck has a very comfortable medium ‘C’ profile and the generous florentine cutaway allows easy access to the full register. A single humbucking FVH 2002 pickup is sited at the double octave position with the adjustable poles sitting directly under the strings, while standard “top hat” tone and volume controls are placed beneath the bridge on the top table. The bridge is an adjustable tune-o-matic style unit on a rosewood base, which is set in front of a trapeze style tailpiece, while a solidly supported 3 ply pick guard comes at the perfect playing height.

The neck is smooth and fast and that generic single humbucking pickup is surprisingly powerful and extraordinarily toneful – not much has changed from early Japanese made models. And although the RFA comes with a standard 43mm nut, it has a generous string spacing of 55mm at the bridge, which will suit those players who follow the traditional fingerpicking method. Bright tone is what you might expect from a maple body, but there is a wonderful warmth and airiness to the timbre of this particular acoustic chamber. Sustain is a full four seconds and a full set of harmonics could be found on the 5th, 7th, 12th and 18th frets – sweet! With a retail price of just over the £700 mark, it’s a steal.

For more go to www.sutherlandtrading.com