Maestro CD-1 | The One with the AAA Top

 

When I saw a 2007 Maestro CD-1 put up for sale, I had plenty of reasons to buy it.

1. I am fan of Maestro guitars;
2. I am curious of how an early Maestro custom sounded and played like;
3. like me, the guitar was made in Singapore;
4. I have never owned an AAA top (battery, yes but guitar top, no);

I had to scour through archived webpages of Maestro website to find the full specs.

 

 

Tadah! Solid AAA Sitka Spruce top with solid Rosewood back and laminated Rosewood sides.

 

 

Not sure if it's due to age but I couldn't see the triple-A-ness of the top.

 

 

I simply love maple side bindings on guitars.

 

 

With a wider nut width @ 44mm and low action, the playability was ideal for fingerstyle playing.

 

 

Parabolic tapered X-braces and tone bars. Seriously, regular braces versus parabolic scalloped/ tapered braces, a whole lot of difference.

 

 

Grover Tuners.

 

 

B-band A3T pickup.

 

 

My first impressions of CD-1: exceedingly responsive; tone is measured and mellow, almost like a good cedar top.

 

 

There’s something inexplicable that made me take an instant liking to this guitar. Sounds absurd but it could be that the guitar has a similar character to myself.

 

So it quickly became my no. 2. The one that I use when I'm too lazy to take Raffles IR out from the case but want a nicer tone than Protégé SM-3.

 

 

But after cutting a sound port on SM-3 and stringing up with Elixirs PB, the tone became unbelievably beautiful.

 

So CD-1 stayed longer and longer inside its bag.

 

 

It no longer sparked that much joy so it was eventually kondo-ed for a paltry $260.