Some weeks ago I ran accross this beautiful Artist 2616 CS in almost pristine condition for a decent price.
The seller, a really nice guy, who ‘s located in the beautiful Black Forest in Southwestern Germany agreed to meet at a highway service station in the middle of the distance between us.
And so, end of July 2024 I hit the road and one and a half hour later in the midst of tourists and cars I held that axe in my hands and hardly couldn’t believe in what perfect condition this 2616 was.
Everything’s original, no corrosion on the gold plating and the binding in perfect condition. The CS finish with the bookmatched wood on the top and back ist simply stunning.
Electronics works well and the Super 70 pickups do a great job in this guitar.
The 2616 was built from 1973 to 1977 and was similar to Gibson’s ES-175 model, but no copy since it already had the genuine Ibanez Artist Castle headstock.
It was available in Cherry Sunburst (CS) and Natural (NT) finis.
Since this is the first Hollow Body Archtop I own I was really curious how it sounded and played. And really, it’s a total differend kind of beast compared to solid bodies and even semic acoustics like my 2630. Played unplugged it’s really resonating and has a loud, clear and full sound. Not as loud as a real acoustic guitar but remarkable louder than a semi acoustic
The neck pickup offers and open, clear and very acoustic like sound which is perfect for rhythm or jazzy chords and solos with the tone pot turned down a bit.
When switching to the bridge pickup the scene changes completely: Now you have a “real” electrical guitar than can sing and scream. Even on higher volumes and with distortion turned on, it definitely more tends to feedback than other models, but it remains controllable and sounding well, so that one of the first songs I played with it was Ted Nugent’s Stanglehold which also was played with an archtop guitar.
The 2616 came with standard 10 strings but in the next days I’ll try a set of flatwound 11s…
Already curious, how this will change the character of the guitar.
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