Washburn has a new wallet friendly range of acoustic guitars called the Deep Forest Ebony Collection. The lineup consists of three models, each featuring striped ebony tops and okoume backs.
Deep Forest Ebony Collection
This new range has been aimed squarely at players, that want great looks with this dark aesthetic, but without the huge price tag that some acoustic guitars have, so the Deep Forest Ebony Collection could be perfect for a lot of guitarists, but especially beginners.
Three Models
The range consists of the traditional shape Deep Forest D standard dreadnought; the Deep Forest Ebony FE, which is a smaller folk-style instrument with an upgraded with a built-in Barcus-Berry LX4 active electronics system with an onboard tuner; and the Deep Forest Ebony ACE, with a cutaway Auditorium body with the same Barcus-Berry LX4 system.
Construction
All three models have striped ebony tops and okoume backs, along with a 25.5″ scale length mahogany neck. The cost saving can be seen with things like the engineered-wood fretboards, which have dot inlays, and also the engineered-wood bridges. I suspect, the striped ebony and use of okoume also helps keep the prices down on these model as well.
They all have a set of die-cast tuners, an ABS nut, along with all chrome hardware and matte finishes. The latter of which is also normally cheaper than a gloss finish.
Budget Goodness?
Washburn has a reputation for making solid budget acoustic guitars, I owned one when I was a teenager and again in my early twenties and both of those were serviceable instruments, built to a price and sounded pretty reasonable.
These new Deep Forest Ebony Collection models looks a lot fancier and as long as the QC from the factory is all done properly, then the prices are pretty competitive. I think for beginners they could be perfect, and it is nice to have a choice of three different models on offer, with all of them under $300.
RRP – The Deep Forest Ebony D is USD 229, whilst the Ebony FE is USD 269 and the Ebony ACE is USD 299
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