Port Authority

GIBSON GENERATION G-00 AND G-200 ACOUSTICS

- JOSHUA M.MILLER

BY DESIGN, THE traditional acoustic guitar is built to project sound toward the listening audience. Unfortunately, this places the ears of the person playing the guitar in a less than optimal position behind and above the guitar’s soundhole. Sure, most acoustic guitars still sound pretty damn good from the player’s perspective, but it’s just not as good as it could be — or is it?

Over the years, luthiers have experimented with placing sound ports on an acoustic guitar’s side (usually the upper bass bout) to direct at least some of the guitar’s output upward towards the player as well. Numerous builders have adopted this feature, including, most notably, John Monteleone on his dazzling archtops, so there’s certainly some validity to this approach. Recently, Gibson joined the ranks of guitar builders that offer side sound ports with the introduction of its new Generation Collection guitars.

The Gibson Generation Collection currently consists of four different models: the G-00 (parlor), G-45 (round-shoulder dreadnought), G-Writer (square-shoulder dreadnought cutaway) and G-200 (jumbo cutaway). The first two models are purely acoustic, while the latter two have built-in LR Baggs Element Bronze under-saddle pickup/ preamp electronic systems. We took a look at the G-00 and G-200, which are the least and most expensive Generation models, respectively.

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