Acoustic Guitar: Gibson CJ-165 Review

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Gibson CJ-165 Review
A gorgeous, small-bodied jumbo guitar with balanced tones and lots of power.

By Andrew DuBrock

IN THIS STORY

Audio Examples
Ex. 3: Gibson CJ-165 played with fingers

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AUDIO: Introduction

AUDIO: Gibson CJ-165 played with a pick

AUDIO: Gibson CJ-165 played with fingers

Gibson acoustic guitars usually evoke images of beautiful inlays, detailed pickguards, and lush sunbursts, all available in a variety of guitar shapes. Perhaps some of the most identifiable Gibsons are the huge-sounding Super Jumbo (such as the SJ-200) guitars, Gibson’s self-proclaimed “King” of the flattops. From 1951 to 1959, Gibson produced a smaller-bodied jumbo, the SJ-185, which was reissued in 1990 and has stayed in production to this day. In early 2006, Gibson added an even smaller-bodied version of the jumbo to their catalog, directly copying the shape of the SJ-200, but shrinking the body size down to 15 inches. The new CJ-165 is available with either rosewood ($3,066 list/$3,000 street) or maple ($2,839 list/$1,850 street) back and sides. We received a maple version for this review. The beautiful sunburst made it a popular guitar to pick up and play around the Acoustic Guitar office, and we were impressed with the power this guitar packed into a 15-inch body.

STUNNING APPEARANCE, EASY TO PLAY

Upon opening the case, it’s hard to miss the exquisite sunburst; an editor who’s not usually keen on sunburst finishes was one of the first to point out how gorgeous this one looks. Along with top and back sunbursts, Gibson adds a sunburst to the neck and sides of the CJ-165. While sunburst guitars are sometimes suspected of covering up less-than-perfect wood (since it’s harder to see detail through a sunburst), the highly detailed maple grain showed through the back of this guitar, reflecting three-dimensional waves like tiger’s eye on a necklace. Mother-of-pearl adorns the middle of the rosette, and fretboard markers bear the Gibson double-parallelogram signature. Grover Mini tuners make tuning easy and help keep the weight down, and
the instrument’s construction is very clean inside and out.

The short scale makes fretting a breeze. I found five-fret spans much easier to grab on the CJ-165 than on my main ax, a Taylor 314K, and even though the nut is slightly smaller than my Taylor’s 1¾-inch nut, it was easy to grab tight chord shapes in root position.

PLENTY OF POWER, WELL-BALANCED TONES

Sporting the same shape as an SJ-200, the CJ-165 looks a lot like a jumbo, until you pick it up. While its diminutive size caters to lap strumming and gives people with smaller frames a jumbo-style alternative, this guitar somehow packs a lot of punch into that small package. Although I attack my guitars with heavy picks and windmill strums, I could not overdrive this guitar, no matter how hard I tried. As a singer-songwriter with a rather loud voice, I often overpower the guitars I play, but the CJ-165 is capable of keeping up with my vocals. Lead lines ring out, and heavily strummed chords leap from the soundbox. The tones are more balanced on this guitar than they would be on a bass-heavy dreadnought, with a focus on midrange punch—probably part of the reason that this guitar holds its own against much larger-bodied guitars. But while some maple guitars offer up midrange tones that sound thin, the CJ-165 has plenty of bass and treble in its voice, as well.

I did find that the pickup accentuated the high midrange a little too heavily, making the resulting tone a less-than-perfect copy of the full sound offered by the unplugged guitar. Plugged into a Fishman Loudbox 100, the guitar also started feeding back at lower-than-desirable levels. If you plan to rely on the Gibson’s built-in pickup frequently, you may want to make sure you have an EQ and notch filter in your signal chain.

Dropping the pick, I found plenty of response playing fingerstyle jazz chords up and down the neck, and fingerpicking chord shapes with open strings sounded great with both a light and heavy touch. AG contributor Pete Madsen stopped by and played some fingerstyle blues on the CJ-165, commenting on its great balance with crisp tones: “Compared to the [Gibson] Nick Lucas that I used to own, it’s still got the high end, but has a rounder tone, which you’d expect from the bigger body.”

I knew I liked the CJ-165’s tone when I picked lightly and had the urge to rest my neck on the side of the upper bout with my ear focused near the soundhole.

THE WRAP

I’ve seen plenty of guitars pass through the doors of Acoustic Guitar, and this guitar is certainly among the finer specimens I’ve played. It has an unusually broad frequency response for a guitar its size, and the bright maple sound is balanced with even bass and treble tones. With a versatile voice, a small size, and a huge sound, the CJ-165 would be a great fit for many players—whether you play fingerstyle blues, flatpicking, or modern fingerstyle. And any singer-songwriter looking for a beautiful and powerful ax should definitely check one out.

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This article also appears in Acoustic Guitar, November 2006

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