Ovation Elite Celebrity - Sunburst Reviews

Im so happy with my new guitar, I´ve allways wanted a Ovation, excellent crispy sound!!, Comfortable playability (the neck is as thin as an electric guitar), it came in perfect tunning from Sweetwater, I preffer a little lower strings attack but its ok. The volume of the guitar is not to high as the traditional center hole guitars, but its ok. I love the glossy finish, great looking guitar!!
Sweet Water delivered the guitar so fast and with one external box for protection, they send me several HD photos of this guitar before delivery process, simply excelent!! Thanks Sweet Water!!

I Love this Beautiful Instrument It plays great and sounds wonderful and the design is fantastic I don't plug it in I prefer the Raw sound, I play this guitar only at my house so there is no need for amplification, It is fun to play and willl give me hours of playing enjoyment.

I waited 24 hours to unbox as requested on the package. When I opened it the next day the guitar was in tune and the action was perfect for me. It sounds so good!! I have been playing it every day and I can't take my eyes off it anytime it's out of the gator case (get one) and in it's stand. It probably sounds the best when plugged in but I play it acoustically most of the time. It has plenty of volume and a crisp bright tone. Thanks so much!!! I love my Ovation

The Ovation Celebrity Elite, is a wonderful Acoustic guitar! It was delivered in two days, the Fedex guy was more excited about it than I was! From the minute I opened the box to the time I started playing, the instrument, looked and felt great. The preamp and the tuner are exceptional. I would recommend this little baby to anyone!

I purchased the CE 44 Reverse Blueburst when it was available in Dec 2015 at a Sweetwater price lower than this. Mine has all the features as this 2-tone Sunburst. My setup was perfect(Sweetwater Techs are fantastic). Intonation and finish on the guitar are perfect. Neck is very nice, I've small hands and I'm able to move around the neck easily. No sharp fret ends was a nice surprise. All I did was change the strings to D'Addairo Phosphor Bronze(been using them on other acoustic/electrics). Used the same guage. They bring the guitar to life. When plugged in the tone is very natural after you fiddle with controls on the amp and guitar.
Very good value for the $. Don't pass this up. Call my sales Rep Joel Helton ext1360 and he'll help you out.

This is certainly better than expected. I previously owned a Made In USA Celebrity. I must say this guitar is flawless and is at least as good. Not much else to say. It's great!

Just received my CE44-1and I must say that I was not disappointed. Surprised actually! I had a little trouble with shipping, but that was all on UPS(use FedEx). My sales tech(Mark Chapman) was really helpful and knew his stuff! This guitar sounds great, is really easy to play and doesn't cramp up your hand like some of the thicker necks. Great acoustic sound and boom plugged in. Great guitar for this price! I would recommend this guitar to students for the ease of playing and the built in tuner. Thank you Sweetwater gang!

Although Ovation guitars are lauded for their live performance qualities, I purchased this specifically to use miked up in a studio environment. I listened to Sweetwater's clips online, and went to local shops to hear how this sounded in person. I decided to go with Ovation's standard Spruce top for a well-rounded tone, rather than the different tonal options presented by the slightly pricier models with different top woods.

The tone is incredibly balanced - much more so than a good many standard dreadnaught or cutaway guitars. With a small diaphragm condenser aimed roughly where the body meets the neck, stereo-tracked strumming is superbly even, without excessive highs or lows. You don't get the 'boom' of a standard acoustic if you don't want it, (you can aim a mic at the sound holes for a little of that) but in dense mixes, it's the midrange that counts. And this delivers midrange in spades.

The midrange projection is great, and helps improve signal to noise ratios by letting you ease back a little on the preamp gain. It's easy to play, with a faster, thinner neck than your standard acoustic. Single-note and articulated passages project just as easily as strummed chords. It allows you to take off a lot of the usual EQ or compression you'd need to tame an acoustic in certain mixes. However, it does sound very even when squashed in stereo by the likes of an LA-2A.

I look forward to testing this one out with my U47 and ELAM251 clones, to see how it adapts to various song styles. With a change to a large diaphragm mic and a tweak to the placement, it should easily handle warmer solo styles. But in general, I think this is a great buy that I wouldn't hesitate to take out for just about any mix.

Nice Acoustic Guitar. I am really glad I took a chance on this guitar, don't let those small sound holes fool you, this thing booms with full and warm acoustic tone, I got the spruce top model. I have had it for a couple of weeks now. Changed the strings after I removed both shims under the saddle. Now it is very playable and the neck shape is like a very soft V and very comfortable to play. Sounds great plugged in or acoustically. Another thing I like is no bridge pins and it stays in tune. Always wanted an Ovation, now I got one!

This is a fine instrument for the price. The action is great. The sound is rich and balanced. Amazing what you can get for the money!

Could not be more happy. I tuned it and played. Went and bought new strings. Tuned and played. Now I don't want to put it down. Sounds great acoisticly, electronics reproduce well with my Yamaha Thr.

This guitar took some getting used to, but boy did the adjustment settle in quickly! I wanted to spend some time with it before reviewing. I love this guitar for it's rich, bright tone. The graphite back adds to the overall awesomeness of this sunburst beauty with reduced climate affects... i worry less about humidity with this one. It's got great sustain and is more comfortable to hold and play than previously imagined. Thumbs up all around, and will probably get another without hesitation.

Excellent packing and shipping with follow up call from Sweetwater to insure everything arrived properly. Guitar plays great and has a beautiful finish. My only disappointment is the tiny dull fret markers. Larger shiny dots would enhance the aesthetics of the guitar.

I bought the blue reverse burst model from Sweetwater in Dec 2015 on… sale. Unfortunately I allowed myself to be in the position of not being able to return the guitar if I didn't like it. (living in Mexico and had someone bring it across the border to me) The action was set uncomfortably high out of the box. I was surprised it made it past the inspection.. Maybe this guitar didn't get one at that time... I improved the action a little by tightening the truss rod up all the way, but it was still very uncomfortable playing past the 3rd fret. I looked at Ovation setup videos on youtube and they all showed their bridges being shimmed, so I pulled the saddle.. No shims and the saddle looked nothing like the ones in the videos. I sanded half of it off, taking a little off at a time.. putting it back in.. tuning back up.. This took forever. I ended up sanding half of saddle off. The action was still a high past the 4th fret, but not so bad that when I put a capo on it pulls the guitar sharp. This of course screwed up the way the piezos sense the string vibration, so the electric part of the acoustic didn't work.

I did some searching on the net about this issue and didn't find much. I looked for replacement saddles, couldn't find any. Emailed Ovation and never heard back from them. Was extremely pissed at myself for letting myself be in a scenario where I couldn't return it.. A few weeks ago, I did a search on Ovation saddles and a 'low' one for the Celebrity Elite came up, and I thought maybe I had the answer to getting this guitar working and playable again. Installed the saddle and the action is somewhere in between where it was when I got it and after I had filed the original saddle down. Way to high to play comfortably past the 4th fret. And this is with .10-.50 strings and the truss rod tightened down as far as it can go. If I loosen the truss rod any it turns almost turns into dobro action.

That's what I get for trusting Ovation and being a dummy on not being able to return it. I have since done more internet searches and found some repairman comments saying that it is common on several of the cheaper models to have a 12fret hump. That Ovation knows this and sets them up high at the factory on purpose to try and cover this up in hopes people will let it go. The guitar I have sucks... 1 star because it's not that bad playing 1st position chords on it.