Product:
Olympia OD-18S Acoustic Guitar

Olympia OD-18S Acoustic Guitar Suggested Retail:
$479.00
Hairball Music Olympia OD-18S Acoustic Guitar Retail: $319.99

Olympia OD-18S Acoustic Guitar Basic Features-

• Full size dreadnought body with solid spruce top.
• Neck/Fingerboard: Set mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard.
• Bridge: "Tone Shaped" rosewood bridge.
• Tuning Heads: Sealed die cast tuners.
• Headstock: Rosewood overlay with abalone logo.
• Inlays: Abalone inlaid dots.
• Neck: 20 extra jumbo frets with 14 frets clear of body.
• Scale: 25.5”.
• Binding: Multi-bound binding, bound neck, abalone style rosette.
• Other Features: Gloss finish, solid spruce top, solid rosewood sides, rosewood veneer back.
• Origin of Manufacture: Korea.

When a musician is looking for the right guitar, the bottom line is sound and feel. The ultimate unbiased test of an instrument is to blindfold a guitarist and allow him (or her) to play guitars until he finds the instrument that is comfortable and gives the sound that he is looking for. Once the ultimate guitar is found, then manufacturer and price can be examined. If this test were to be conducted using similar Tacoma guitars against the Olympia OD-18S, I’ll guarantee that the Olympia would continually be in the top running.

Tacoma has taken great pains to ensure that the Olympia product meets rigid quality standards. Tacoma sends a representative overseas to verify each shipment prior to release and verifies the setup of each guitar prior to shipment to their dealers. In a very short amount of time, the Olympia line has grown to be our hottest selling acoustic guitar line.

The OD-18S is a visually striking guitar with surprising attention to detail. The headstock sports a rosewood veneer with the Olympia logo inlaid with abalone. Although unconfirmed, the tuning heads appear to be Gotoh. The neck sports a cream colored binding around the fingerboard with inlaid abalone dots. The solid spruce top is a matched 2-piece top that required a magnifying glass to see the seam. The rosewood “tone shaped” bridge, abalone style rosette, serpentine top binding and black pickguard provide beautiful contrast to the flawless spruce top. The rosewood sides enhance this contrast with their cream binding and the rosewood back is truly striking with a decorative serpentine stripe separating the rosewood back at the mid point.

Now that we have discussed this guitar as a fashion statement, we need to get to the business end of this guitar, the playability and sound. In order to prepare myself for this task, a fresh beer was in order. Once properly set up, I was ready to tackle this instrument.

The action is well set up from the factory but I would have preferred to lower the action approximately 0.025” (.64mm). This would put me in my normal comfort range. Since action is a personal choice depending on your style of play, I left the action as is. I found the fretting to be even and very comfortable on the entire neck. I found no dead spots or rattles on any strings through the 20th fret. The sound quality was incredibly rich and bright with great projection. The guitar sustained very well and produced rich harmonics and overtones. As I tend to do with guitars I truly enjoy, I lost myself for an hour playing the OD-18S. This guitar truly complements the USA Tacoma line and would be at home on stage as well as in your living room.

And now for the Lighter Guy rating of the Olympia OD-18S acoustic guitar, 8.5 lighters out of a possible 10 lighters. This is a great, low price solid top guitar with exceptional quality and sound.