
The new Eastman T185MX is an all-solid-wood 15" thinline that channels the rich sound of a full-bodied archtop.
Back in 1992, Eastman Strings began selling violin-family instruments that were built by hand with minimal assistance of power tools. So it was only natural—given the design, structural, and construction attributes archtops share with violins—that Eastman would enter the archtop market a decade later.
While archtops remain the cornerstone of the Eastman line, the company has grown to offer a range of fine flattop guitars from parlors to jumbos. More recently, Eastman unveiled a family of thinline electrics. That’s a pretty logical evolution for a company that’s made a name in affordable, high-quality archtops. But when we checked out the T185MX, an all-solid-wood 15" thinline that channels the rich sound of a full-bodied archtop, we were tempted to wonder why they didn’t make the move sooner.
Fancy and Familiar
At a glance—with its double cutaways,
dual-humbucker electronics package, Tune-o-matic-style bridge, and stop tailpiece—the
T185MX resembles the mother of all thinlines,
the Gibson ES-335. But the T185MX
deviates from the classic Gibson’s build formula
in many respects. Rather than laminate
maple and poplar for the body construction,
the 15" T185MX has a two-piece
back carved from solid mahogany (with
beautiful figuring), mahogany sides, and a
carved maple soundboard. The T185MX is
also fully hollow, with a small block underneath
the bridge and tailpiece, more like an
ES-330 or Epiphone Casino.
There’s no shortage of cosmetic niceties on the T185MX. In place of plastic binding, the body is wrapped in figured maple binding with a pair of black pinstripes—an elegant flourish that’s repeated, albeit with a single black line, around the f-holes, fretboard, and headstock face. Clean pearl-micro-dot position markers stud the ebony fretboard, the same wood used for the truss-rod cover. And an Eastman logo inlaid in maple graces the headstock, which has the sort of bold, dramatic flair of an old D’Angelico.
Overall, the T185MX is a well-built instrument. The fretwork was tidy, if just a tad jagged at a few edges. The finish was smoothly buffed and free of any apparent orange-peel effect, but there were a few less-than-well-executed areas. In spots, the sunburst finish encroached unevenly on the binding and there appeared to be a slight excess of glue at the neck joint. That said, these cosmetic details had no bearing on what is otherwise a great-playing guitar.
Not surprisingly, the hollowbody Eastman is very light, weighing just 6.3 pounds. And as a longtime ES-335 player, the T185MX felt immediately comfortable and familiar, even though its light weight, longer 25" scale length, and more slender waist are all significant differences. The C-shaped neck, which is similar to the neck profile you’d encounter on an early ’60s Gibson thinline, felt sleek and fast in all registers. It was equally accommodating of complex barre-chord shapes, speedy single-note excursions, and deep bends, even though it comes equipped with .011 D’Addario strings rather than the customary .010s you’d expect.
Ratings
Pros:
Great sounds and playability in an extremely comfortable, all-solid-wood thinline.
Cons:
Craftsmanship imperfections.
Tones:
Playability:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$1,600
Company
eastmanguitars.com
Thin Lines, Fat Tones
The T185MX is a pleasure to play
unplugged. It has impressive sustain and
presence without an amp. Individual notes
across all 22 frets sounded crisp and clear,
and there was excellent note articulation in
complex chords. Few electric guitars are this
satisfying to pick at while stationed in front
of the television.
Once plugged into a Fender Pro Junior, the Seymour Duncan ’59s T185MX really came alive. With the neck pickup engaged, the guitar broadcasts a rich jazz tone that’s a bit more complex than what you typically hear from a laminated thinline. It’s perfect for everything from Wes Montgomery–style thumb-picked octaves to Joe Pass chord-melody solos—a plus for those who want a classic jazz tone but don’t enjoy the heft and girth of a traditional archtop.
The T185MX is nothing if not adaptable, and it excels in myriad musical contexts. The bridge pickup has an articulate bark that’s never harsh and lends itself to everything from chicken-pickin’ and stripped-down punk to fingerstyle blues, depending on your attack and where you set the responsive and wide-ranging tone control. Better still, it can deliver the authoritative voice and response of a solidbody without sacrificing the warm woodiness of its hollow body. With the pickups in tandem, the tone controls rolled back, and an Ibanez Tube Screamer in the mix—the Eastman served up a sweet and fat variation of Clapton’s classic “woman tone.” And played at high volumes, the guitar was surprisingly resistant to the most screeching feedback while remaining capable of very musical feedback that’s a blast to control via amplifier proximity.
The Verdict
Eastman’s T185MX is an attractive, alternative
twist on the classic, laminated semi-hollow
formula. The slender neck and
slightly slimmer body make it fast and easy
to play. And the all-solid-wood construction
and Seymour Duncan pickups generate
a deeply resonant voice that’s delightfully
full of range and musical possibilities.
The $1,600 price tag may seem a little
steep for an imported axe, but the solid-wood
construction—which adds to the
price—does seem to pay sonic dividends.
The refreshing design guarantees you’ll
cut a unique profile on stage too. And
given the plethora of tones lurking within
the T185MX, this may be the only guitar
you’ll ever need in a stage situation. That
kind of versatility can be hard to sum up in
dollars alone.
PG contributor Tom Butwin demos 7 direct boxes — active and passive — showing off sound samples, features, and real-world advice. Options from Radial, Telefunken, Hosa, Grace Design, and Palmer offer solutions for any input, setting, and budget.
Grace Design m303 Active Truly Isolated Direct Box
The Grace Design m303 is an active, fully isolated DI box, delivering gorgeous audio performance for the stage and studio. Our advanced power supply design provides unbeatable headroom and dynamic range, while the premium Lundahl transformer delivers amazing low-end clarity and high frequency detail. True elegance, built to last.
Rupert Neve Designs RNDI-M Active Transformer Direct Interface
Compact design, giant tone. The RNDI-M brings the stunning tone & clarity of its award-winning counterparts to an even more compact and pedalboard-friendly format, with the exact same custom Rupert Neve Designs transformers and discrete FET input stage as the best-selling RNDI, RNDI-S and RNDI-8.
Telefunken TDA-1 1-channel Active Instrument Direct Box
The TDA-1 phantom powered direct box uses high-quality components and classic circuitry for rich, natural sound. With discrete Class-A FET, a European-made transformer, and a rugged metal enclosure, it delivers low distortion and a broad frequency response. Assembled and tested in Connecticut, USA, for reliable performance and superior sound.
Hosa SideKick Active Direct Box
The Hosa SideKick DIB-445 Active DI delivers clear, strong signals for live and studio use. Ideal for guitars, basses, and keyboards, it minimizes interference over long runs. Features include a pad switch, ground lift, and polarity flip. With a flat frequency response and low noise, it ensures pristine audio.
Radial JDI Jensen-equipped 1-channel Passive Instrument Direct Box
The Radial JDI preserves your instrument’s natural tone with absolute clarity and zero distortion. Its Jensen transformer delivers warm, vintage sound, while its passive design eliminates hum and buzz. With a ruler-flat response (10Hz–40kHz) and no phase shift, the JDI ensures pristine sound in any setup.
Radial J48 1-channel Active 48v Direct Box
The Radial J48 delivers exceptional clarity and dynamic range, making it the go-to active DI for professionals. Its 48V phantom-powered design ensures clean, powerful signal handling without distortion. With high headroom, low noise, and innovative power optimization, the J48 captures your instrument’s true tone—perfect for studio and stage.
Palmer River Series - Ilm
The Palmer ilm, an upgraded version of the legendary Palmer The Junction, delivers studio-quality, consistent guitar tones anywhere. This passive DI box features three analog speaker simulations, ensuring authentic sound reproduction. Its advanced filter switching mimics real guitar speaker behavior, making it perfect for stage, home, or studio recording sessions.
Learn more from these brands!
Delicious, dynamic fuzz tones that touch on classic themes without aping them. Excellent quality. Super-cool and useful octave effect.
Can’t mix and match gain modes.
$349
Great Eastern FX Co. Focus Fuzz Deluxe
Adding octave, drive, and boost functions to an extraordinary fuzz yields a sum greater than its already extraordinary parts.
One should never feel petty for being a musical-instrument aesthete. You can make great music with ugly stuff, but you’re more likely to get in the mood for creation when your tools look cool. Great Eastern FX’s Focus Fuzz Deluxe, an evolution of their très élégantFocus Fuzz, is the sort of kit you might conspicuously keep around a studio space just because it looks classy and at home among design treasures likeRoland Space Echoes, Teletronix LA-2As, andblonde Fender piggyback amps. But beneath the FFD’s warmly glowing Hammerite enclosure dwells a multifaceted fuzz and drive that is, at turns, beastly, composed, and unique. Pretty, it turns out, is merely a bonus.
Forks in the Road
Though the Cambridge, U.K.-built FFD outwardly projects luxuriousness, it derives its “deluxe” status from the addition of boost, overdrive, and octave functions that extend an already complex sound palette. Unfortunately, a significant part of that fuzzy heart is a Soviet-era germanium transistor that is tricky to source and limited the original Focus Fuzz production to just 250 units. For now, the Focus Fuzz Deluxe will remain a rare bird. Great Eastern founder David Greaves estimates that he has enough for 400 FFDs this time out. Hopefully, the same dogged approach to transistor sourcing that yielded this batch will lead to a second release of this gem, and on his behalf we issue this plea: “Transistor hoarders, yield your troves to David Greaves!”
The good news is that the rare components did not go to waste on compromised craft. The FFD’s circuit is executed with precision on through-hole board, with the sizable Soviet transistor in question hovering conspicuously above the works like a cross between a derby hat and B-movie flying saucer. If the guts of the FFD fail to allay doubts that you’re getting what you paid for, the lovingly designed enclosure and robust pots and switches—not to mention the pedal’s considerable heft—should take care of whatever reticence remains.
Hydra in Flight
Just as in the original Focus Fuzz, the fuzz section in the Deluxe deftly walks an ideal path between a germanium Fuzz Face’s weight and presence, a Tone Bender’s lacerating ferocity, and the focus of a Dallas Rangemaster. You don’t have to strain to hear that distillate of elements. But even if you can’t easily imagine that combination, what you will hear is a fuzz that brims with attitude without drowning in saturation. There’s lots of dynamic headroom, you’ll feel the touch responsiveness, and you’ll sense the extra air that makes way for individual string detail and chord overtones. It shines with many different types of guitars and amps, too. I was very surprised at the way it rounded off the sharp edges made by a Telecaster bridge pickup and AC15-style combo while adding mass and spunk. The same amp with a Gibson SG coaxed out the Tony Iommi-meets-Rangemaster side of the fuzz. In any combination, the fuzz control itself, which boosts gain while reducing bias voltage (both in very tasteful measure) enhances the vocabulary of the guitar/amp pairing. That range of color is made greater still by the fuzz’s sensitivity to guitar volume and tone attenuation and touch dynamics. Lively clean tones exist in many shades depending on your guitar volume, as do rich low-gain overdrive sounds.
The drive section is similarly dynamic, and also quite unique thanks to the always versatile focus control, which adds slight amounts of gain as well as high-mid presence. At advanced focus levels, the drive takes on a fuzzy edge with hints of Fender tweed breakup and more Black Sabbath/Rangemaster snarl. It’s delicious stuff with Fender single-coils and PAFs, and, just as with the fuzz, it’s easily rendered thick and clean with a reduction in guitar volume or picking intensity. The boost, meanwhile, often feels just as lively and responsive—just less filthy—lending sparkle and mass to otherwise thin and timid combo amp sounds.
Among this wealth of treats, the octave function is a star. It works with the fuzz, drive, or boost. But unlike a lot of octave-up effects, you needn’t approach it with caution. Though it adds plenty of the buzzing, fractured, and ringing overtones that make octave effects so wild and distinct, it doesn’t strip mine low end from the signal. The extra balance makes it feel more musical under the fingers and even makes many chords sound full and detailed—a trick few octave effects can manage. With the fuzz, the results are concise, burly, and articulate single notes that lend themselves to lyrical, melodic leads and power chords. In drive-plus-octave mode, there are many hues of exploding practice-amp trash to explore. The boost and the octave may be my favorite little gem among the FFD’s many jewels, though. Adding the octave to boosted signals with a generous heap of focus input yields funky, eccentric electric-sitar tones that pack a punch and are charged with character in their fleeting, flowering state.
The Verdict
It’s hard to imagine adding extra footswitches to the Focus Fuzz Deluxe without sacrificing its basic elegance and proportions, and without elevating its already considerable price. Certainly, there would be real utility in the ability to mix and match all three excellent gain modes. On the other hand, the output level differences between fuzz, drive, and boost are pretty uniform, meaning quick switches on the fly will shift texture and attitude dramatically without delivering an ear-frying 30 dB boost. And though it’s hard not be tantalized by sounds that might have been, from combining the fuzz and/or boost and drive circuits, the myriad tones that can be sourced by blending any one of them with the superbly executed octave effect and the varied, rangeful focus and output controls will keep any curious tone spelunker busy for ages. For most of them, I would venture, real treasure awaits.
Why is Tommy’s take on “Day Tripper” so hard? And what song would Adam Miller never play with him? Plus, we get Adam’s list of favorite Tommy Emmanuel records.
We call guitarist Adam Miller in the middle of the night in Newcastle, Australia, to find out what it’s like to play with Certified Guitar Player, Tommy Emmanuel. Miller tells us just how famous Tommy is in Australia, and what it was like hearing him play from a formative age. Eventually, Adam got to open for Emmanuel, and they’ve since shared the stage, so we get the firsthand scoop: Why is Tommy’s take on “Day Tripper” so hard? And what song would Miller never play with him? Plus, we get Adam’s list of favorite Tommy Emmanuel records.
Adam’s newly released trio album, Timing, is out now.
Plus, we’re talking about new recordings from Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton, as well as Brooklyn Mediterranean surf party band Habbina Habbina.
Peavey Electronics announces the Decade preamp pedal. The internet and social media have been abounding with chatter about the current recording secret of the modern-day guitar gods – the Peavey Decade practice amp.
The discontinued amp has reached unimaginable demands on the secondary markets. So much so that small pedal builders have made attempts to capitalize and duplicate the proprietary designs themselves. Tone chasers can now rejoice as the Decade preamp pedal now brings those highly sought after tones back to market in a small, compact footprint.
Guitar players will find a single input, single output preamp pedal straight forward and easy to navigate. Faithful to the original Decade circuitry (circa 1980), the control layout will be identical to the original amplifier. The GAIN section features PRE and POST controls. PREGAIN sets the gain of the input circuitry. POST GAIN sets the gain before the out. Built off the legendary Peavey Saturation patent, the new, switchable SATURATION allows tube-like sustain and overload at all volume levels, suitable for bedrooms, rehearsals, stadiums and apparently, those very expensive recording studios. The traditional BASS, MID, and HIGH equalization controls provide the tone shaping enhancements any guitar should require. Upgraded pedal features include an internal 24v supply from the standard 9v supply/battery and worldwide EMC/FCC compliance approval.
To learn more, visit online at www.Peavey.com
Street $199.99 USD