Ah, reading this my guitar geekness has risen. Jon my dear guitar friend thank you thank you.

I am on the team of affordability but I do have one guitar my beloved Yamaha LL6M has a passive piezo pickup which requires no battery thank God and has an Engelmann Spruce Solid top! With Mahogney back and sides and neck with the beloved Rosewood fretboard which are super rare these days cause of the shortage. All in all amazing guitar!

But none of that matters when it comes to the guitar My father gave me an Ibanez YPF-10 Oh that is not fancy like my Yamaha and it has a laminated top but still the sound is amazing and the wood aged pretty well. I have to say it is amazing and most of all sentimental value in my humble opinion is more valuable than a Gibson Hummingbird. So, yeah if someone came to me and said they would give me a Gibson Hummingbird with pearl inlays for my father's Ibanez I would kindly decline and tell them to go on their marry way cause there is no way in the world I am ever going to let this baby go. It means so much and it has become part of my soul.

I upgraded the beloved Ibanez YPF-10 with the passive pickup from LR-Braggs M1 This baby is fully passive so no batteries Thank God!

I also installed peg tuners from Planet Wave D'Daddario the ones that lock at the end and snap the strings clean so solid and wonderful.

You can tell by now Jon I absolutely hate active pickups. Oh, too keep a long story short. I brought a beautiful Seagull Ukulele Nylon String with Active pickup which had the standard 9V battery of course I later found out the cable to the 9V battery broke after playing a few times. Ever since my fears have become a reality I never went back. All active pickups have the danger of battery connectors breaking and replacing the battery is a pain.

I love passive piezo pickup cause first of all no batteries but the main reason is it takes the natural vibration of the strings of the acoustic guitar and from the bridge to the pickup is glorious.

If I may I recommend the Yamaha THR5A great mini app with great reproduction of the acoustic piezo pickups. Sounds great.

If I had to choose I would spend extra money on Solid Top cause it is a game changer. If you listen closely you can tell the difference between a laminated top and a solid top. I have a rare Tatay classical guitar the one you see me holding in my hands in the logo of my Medium in the past and now is being used in my Homebound of Sounds publication is actually more than 70 years old and I am not sure but seeing the wood grain I am pretty sure it is a Red Spanish Cedar Solid top and back and side and the sound on that beauty is heaven. Also, my Yamaha with the solid top and my La Patrie Motif Cedar Solid top are all wonderful. But my Laminated Applause by Ovation is not bad but I can tell the difference. I don't get the full wholesome sound from laminated tops. The only laminated top I love is the one my father gave me but I think I am a little biased on that.

Goodness me. I wrote a whole article and won the longest comment on Medium

I am sorry Jon. You probably have no idea how happy I am to meet someone I can talk about guitars with. I can go on about strings, bridge materials, pickups, loopers, and the list goes on and on but I am going to end it here for now.

Thanks for letting me vent on my passion! 😃