Samick D-5/LH

Crafted in Indonesia - American Design and Engineering by Greg Bennett
S/N: SI30600581

Description from the Greg Bennett Guitar website:

When you consider the various parts of the guitar, the top is clearly the most critical element. The top, in the most basic sense, acts like an air pump. The more flexible the top material, the more efficiently it translates the energy from the string into the sound waves that we hear as music. Instruments made with solid tops produce greater volume, fuller tone, and have stronger projection.

The WORTHINGTON™ series acoustics have a solid spruce top, in a package with striped mahogany sides and back for clarity and balance. Mahogany may be the best overall wood if you need an evenly balanced sound. The balance lets the serious player determine the tone by the way he plays the guitar. The soft corner bridge design helps prevent finish cracking at the corners. Grover™ tuners round out a truly professional package.

D 5 LH FEATURES:
•Left handed Dreadnought cutaway body
•Solid Spruce top, Mahogany back and sides
•Nato Mahogany neck
•Rosewood fingerboard (12” radius)
•Nut width 1 11/16”
•20 fret, 25 1/2”scale
•Dot inlay
•5-ply cream binding
•Grover™ A102C, 14:1 ratio tuners
•Rosewood bridge

AVAILABLE FINISHES: Natural (gloss)



UTILIZATION

A typical Dreadnought that is well balanced from head stock to strap pin. It has a very nice, relatively loud bass with clear highs for a solid spruce top acoustic in this price range. This guitar was lightly used, came with a Fender gig bag and still had the original strings on it. The protective film was still on the pick guard.
Being a used guitar, I don't know if the action had been lowered or it came that way from the factory but it is low and plays very good up the neck w/o any string buzz. At the 12th fret, it is exactly in tune on 5 strings. The B string is just a wee bit on the flat side. I don't know what material the nut and saddle are made of but they appear to be of much better quality than plastic. The saddle looks to be hand fitted.

SOUNDS

I am impressed by it's overall balanced sound.

OVERALL OPINION

This guitar is probably one of the most underrated acoustic guitars for under $400. It is no longer in production in a lefty version but there are a few used ones out there. You just have to look for them. The right handed specifications are the same.
This guitar is very nice looking with the reddish hue of the Mahogany back and sides. It appears to be made with pride by the Samick employees who in the past have made lots of guitars for "other brands".
In comparison, this guitar sounds as good as my Fender DG-14S, Washburn D-10S, and Epiphone PR350S which are all lefty solid top acoustics.