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The following is a text version of the review
In the 17 years of China's guitar market, there have been big words such as process upgrades, color revolutions, and new materials that were not often seen in a niche industry. Today's evaluation of this domestic brand guitar Enya x1 was born in such a prosperous year.
As one of the representatives of the new material guitar, x1 quickly broke into the public eye with the unique temperament given by hpl. Coupled with the retail price of less than a thousand yuan, I believe that many beginner guitar enthusiasts have started or are ready to start, so I hope today's evaluation can help you.
appearance
Enya is also a company that pays a lot of attention to design in the industry, and at the moment when the minimalist wind is sweeping the world, it is unsurprisingly wrapped up in it.
This x1 has a simple and unique appearance, and the unique thing is that it has created a barrel shape called aj.
In the past, we are more familiar with the barrel shape, including the ga shape developed by Taylor and the jumbo shape developed by Gipson, so from the actual appearance and naming method of the x1 barrel shape, it is not difficult to infer that the aj barrel shape of x1 is actually a simple combination of the above two barrel shapes.
Why emphasize that it is a simple combination, because from the perspective of process, the research and development of a new barrel shape not only requires the violin factory to have a considerable accumulation in the violin making process, but also requires a long cycle in the specific research and development stage.
The x1 was the first guitar product launched by a young musical instrument company, and I personally judge for this reason alone that it will not meet the above two conditions. Therefore, I do not recommend that the piano lovers pay too much attention to this new type of aj barrel shape. Of course, Enya officials did not overemphasize this barrel shape in the marketing process.
The simplicity of the x1 is reflected in the fact that it removes all the decoration on the body, no hemming, no mouth chakra flowers, and even no skid plate.
Doing subtraction is not cutting corners, compared to doing addition, doing subtraction requires more wisdom and courage. Coupled with the asymmetrical design of the head, the whole guitar exudes a maverick youthful atmosphere.
material
hpl is an abbreviation for high pressure laminate, which literally translates as high-pressure laminate, commonly known as refractory decorative board.
Its main characteristics are high temperature resistance and waterproof, and it is currently widely used in the field of home improvement. Because the production process has been very mature, so the cost is low, the application of guitar production can effectively reduce costs, improve the stability of the product, as for its performance in the sound, we will test later.
I have no research on when this material began to be used in guitar making.
But as we all know, Martin has used this material many years ago to develop some low-end entry series of guitars, such as the ink X series, and has been used to this day.
This alone is enough to show that HPL is completely feasible for guitar making, but it is also enough to show that it is only feasible.
Enya uses hpl material on the x1 box, and the neck is still made of peach core solid wood.
My personal analysis is that this is because the domestic process of making composite material necks like the Martin X series is not yet mature, of course, this is not because the process is difficult, but because the current domestic demand for this neck is less, manufacturers have no enthusiasm to invest in research and development.
In the process of preparing for the assessment, I also asked Enya for verification, and their response basically supported my point of view.
On the contrary, in the fingerboard and bridge part of x1, Enya also chose the same artificial ebony as the Martin x series, which is also a new type of artificial composite material.
From the perspective of the amount of guitar used, it is actually much lower than the proportion of material used in the neck, but because this artificial ebony has been widely used in many fields other than guitars, domestic guitar manufacturers can get a free ride.
The production process of the above two new materials is somewhat similar, they are supplemented by paper as the main raw material and then add resin and other materials, mixed and pressed, they have a significant improvement in the utilization rate of materials relative to wood, and have a more positive contribution to environmental protection.
The x1 acoustic model uses the strings of the Dadario exp16, and the electro-acoustic version is the brass strings of the Illix 11025 model. The upper and lower chord pillows are made of cow bone.
experience
Enya also spent a lot of thought on x1.
This is the x1 box, clean and tidy with a slight design feeling. Open the box to see that Enya has come standard for each x1, and because of the special barrel shape of x1, the bag needs to be tailored.
In addition, you can also find such a bag, which contains some practical gadgets that Enya comes with, including a tuner, a pitch shifter, a set of strings, a wiping cloth, two paddles, a strap and an adjustment wrench.
Using this adjustment wrench, you can adjust the neck bend and the angle of the handle of x1 in the position of the head of x1 and the tail of the neck respectively to achieve a more satisfactory feel. The adjustment of the position of the head is the same as the adjustment principle of many pianos from the sound hole here, and we are already familiar with it.
A special point is the adjustment of the angle of this handle, its principle is to loosen the bolt here, so that there is a little gap between the tail of the neck and the box, and then add a gasket to the gap to change the angle of the handle. Gaskets need to be made by themselves, and if you want to change the angles in different directions, you need to make different shapes of gaskets.
For details, please refer to the video 5 minutes and 26 seconds
If you're familiar with the handle of a Taylor guitar, you'll know what I'm talking about in seconds. If you are not familiar with it, then this part you can completely ignore, because obviously, this is a very difficult and more complex operation, if the operation is not proper, not only can not achieve the purpose of adjusting the chord distance, but also may have a negative impact on the overall vibration conduction of the guitar.
It is not a problem for some piano lovers with strong hands-on ability, but this design is not in line with the market positioning of x1 as an entry-level guitar with a retail price of less than 1,000 yuan for beginner guitar lovers.
Fortunately, Enya's design will not increase the production cost of the whole piano, that is to say, even if the piano friends cannot use this function, they will not pay extra for the purchase of the piano.
Since x1 uses more than 70% of the composite materials, these materials have high temperature resistance and waterproof characteristics, so in theory it will have better stability, but because the neck as a very critical part of the whole piano is still used in solid wood, so if improper storage, it is still possible to deform.
That's why Enya planted an adjustable rebar inside the neck of the x1 to cope with this change that could occur at any time.
In terms of feel, let's first look at some relevant factory data.
The neck width of x1 is standard 43 mm, the neck thickness is 21 mm at 1 pin position, 23 mm at 9 pin position, the effective string length is 650 mm, the string spacing is 0.64mm and 2.49 mm for six strings and 12 pins, and 0.43 mm and 1.68 mm for one string and 12 pins, respectively.
The chord pitch is low, and the other data are in the conventional range. Judging from these data reflections, the feel of x1 should belong to the lighter level, and the results of our hand experience are actually consistent with the data.
timbre
In the timbre comparison session, we also selected these two reference objects for x1 this time.
One is the most representative Martin dxk2ae in the use of HPL materials, which should be the teacher of Enya x1. The other is the domestic guitar brand Ayili d950 at the same price as X1, but this is a guitar made of traditional wood materials.
The retail price of these three pianos in China is Martin dxk2ae - 5400 yuan, which is an electric box piano, if not connected to the pickup price of about 5000 yuan. x1 - 999 yuan, Yayili d 950 - 990 yuan.
Timbre test audio video 8 minutes and 28 seconds
In view of the fact that some users have previously reflected that the video in WeChat is compressed very seriously, which will cause audio distortion, so we still prepared a lossless audio on the Baidu network disk this time, the following is the download address and password.
link:
https://pan.baidu.com/s/1dobahilvmtuvzk_4ephcpa
Password: tk2s
Our conclusion: whether it is Enya's x1 or Martin's dxk2ae, their dynamic responsiveness is significantly inferior to the Yaili d950 made of traditional wood materials, and the d950 is just an entry-level single instrument.
This shows that hpl is significantly different from solid wood in terms of sound performance. Notice that I'm talking about differences, not gaps.
The timbre of these two pianos made of hpl material is not warm or stuffy in our usual sense. It should be said that it is a particularly soft feeling, but also has a certain clarity.
Its biggest problem is that the volume is too small, the tension is insufficient, and the expression is relatively limited.
Therefore, we guess that it may be precisely for these reasons that Martin will officially give it this X series, all equipped with pickups as standard, and there is no original sound model. Due to the different market positioning of Enya, their x1 electroacoustic version and acoustic version are available.
If we compare Martin and Enya separately, we can find that Enya's x1 is a pure guitar made of hpl, and the tone has the characteristics of hpl, clean, soft, small volume, limited expression and so on.
Martin's dxk2ae, on this basis, teaches the tone to be a little brighter, a little richer in expression, and the overall timbre is closer to the timbre of the wood material. This is the advantage of dxk2ae, but it is not very obvious.
Why should I emphasize the difference rather than the gap earlier, because I think that the volume of hpl is small and the tension is insufficient, which sounds like a disadvantage, but I think that if it is used well, it can also turn disadvantages into advantages.
Na Enya's x1 is a good embodiment of this, although it is all HPL material guitars, but its retail price is within a thousand yuan, only one-fifth of this Martin, the main consumer group is beginners.
Beginner guitar lovers have a characteristic, they are difficult to control the strength of the piano, easy to play the piano is particularly loud, the sound is particularly messy. The shrinkage sound characteristics of hpl materials just suppress this noise caused by improper operation to a certain extent, especially when sweeping strings.
So, when a beginner uses this x1 sweeper, you'll find that he's noticeably cleaner than a traditional wooden guitar, and the effect is immediate.
But if Enya sets the price of x1 at more than 2,000 yuan and targets consumer groups that are already in the advanced stage, such an advantage will disappear.
summary
As a product manager, from a product point of view, I think Enya's x1 is a very good and successful guitar product.
It accurately and fully utilizes the characteristics and advantages of hpl and artificial ebony and other materials, through the integration of these advantages, greatly reduced the cost of x1 manufacturing, for the majority of guitar enthusiasts, especially beginners to bring a young appearance, personality, recognizability, affordable price, stable and moderate performance of the entry guitar.
Through this guitar product, it also reflects Enya's good resource integration ability and clear insight into the market. I believe that in the future they will develop better and go further.
That's all for this review, thank you for your support!