Canada’s secret weapon in the guitar price wars? Ben Morgan-Brown flies a Seagull.
Seagull is one of several guitar brands owned and manufactured in Canada by the Godin company. In recent years they have won a lot of fans by offering guitars of extremely good quality at very affordable prices. A serious amount of hand crafting goes into Seagull guitars and the Entourage Autumn Burst QIT we were sent to try shows that with a quality of build and finish that belies the asking price.
Being a Canadian company, Godin/Seagull has access to an infinite supply of wood and specialises in using local timbers rather than the more common imported exotics. In the case of this Entourage, that means it has a spruce top mated to a laminated wild cherry back and sides with a silver leaf maple neck, bearing a rosewood fingerboard (a bit of a luxury choice these days).
Being a slope shouldered dreadnought you would expect a balanced sound and that’s just what Ben found in our tests, – as always, check out the sound using the best speakers or headphones you can get your hands on.
As well as going their own way when specifying tonewoods, Seagull doesn’t opt for an off the shelf undersaddle pickup/transducer, preferring to make its own – which is where the QIT tag comes from in this guitar’s name. The QIT is a standard piezo system with a built in tuner and pre-amp with adjustable EQ that enables the guitar to plug straight into an amp or PA, adding to its already impressive general versatility.
Despite being perhaps a little plain looking, the Seagull Entourage doesn’t really have an Achilles heel at all. As you can hear, it sounds good, plays well, the pickup works, it’s a versatile workhorse that, in Ben’s words, ‘punches above its weight’. Watch Acoustic Review’s video and both hear and see for yourself.
AR Reviews are recorded in a top quality studio with the finest equipment. To get the best from our reviews and really hear the instruments perform make sure you listen on good quality speakers or headphones!
Specifications
Seagull Entourage Autumn Burst Q IT
UK price £499
Top: solid spruce
Back &S ides: laminated wild cherry
Neck: silver leaf maple
Fingerboard & Bridge: rosewood
Body Depth: 4.9 inches
Body Length: 19.8 inches
Lower Bout: 15.87 inches
Nut Width: 1.72 inches
Scale: 24.84 inches
Upper Bout: 11.38 inches
Waist: 10.54 inches
