AFFORDABLE RESO'.
 Review by Michael Messer. Reproduced by permission of TGM.
Amistar Tricone
‘Affordable’ and ‘metal-bodied resonators’ are words rarely found in the same sentence. But TGM has tracked down a new brand to hit the UK that may change all that. Review by Michael Messer.
Seventy years after John Dopyera (a Slovakian immigrant living in California) invented the Dobro and Tricone resonator guitars, Amistar - from the Czech Republic - have started to produce a budget-priced range of National-type resonators. Dopyera, who always held on to his eastern European roots - DOBRO is the Slovak word for good - would have approved!
This Amistar resonator has a bell-brass nickel plated body with three 6” resonators. It’s a copy of the classic 1920’s National Silver Guitar, which later became known as the Tricone or Tri-Plate. The originals, which are now becoming priceless antiques, are generally considered to be among the best sounding slide guitars ever made; Dopyera himself once said of his Tricone design that ‘the sound flowed like a river’.
Over the past twenty years I have seen and played a great many original National Tricones and many of the current ‘top price’ models from National Reso-Phonic and Fine Resophonic - the leaders in the field. I was astonished when Resound called me and told me about these Amistars which retail at approximately half the price of the other brands. It’s good news for the working player so where’s the catch?
The structure and design of this guitar is based almost exactly on that 1920’s original and apart from one or two cost-cutting corners, it’s a very close copy. As I have said before in TGM I go a lot on first impressions and this guitar impressed me. The bell-brass body is very well constructed and the nickel plating is excellent. It is a shame they didn’t spend more time polishing the bell-brass before it was plating as in places it’s little rough and, of course, once the nickel is on there is no way of improving it. However, this is a musical instrument and (hopefully) not an ornament for the lounge wall!
Amistar claim that the neck is ‘Honduras’ mahogany but in reality, due to the scarcity of that ultra-high grade mahogany it more likely to simply be s. American mahogany. In section it’s rounded at the back rather than the pronounced V shaping of most 1920s Nationals but it all feels pretty good. The frets are the ‘thin wire’ type - just like the old ones - and generally the rosewood fingerboard has a pretty good feel to it. The nut is bone (I didn’t ask whose) and there is no binding around the fingerboard. The dot markers are in the correct places and there are clear side-markers on the bass-side of the neck.
The headstock is solid, not the same as vintage Nationals which were mostly slotted. This is a less attractive but is more practical for quick string changes adding to the working musician vibe of the whole instrument. A set of Gotoh tuners proved perfectly adequate and will shouldlast a long time while any neck adjsutments are handled by accessing the truss-rod under the smart headstock-placed cover.
Unlike a regular acoustic, of which you can get a good idea of the construction quality from peering and feeling through the soundhole, to inspect a resonator you have to undo those screws around the cover-plate and check out whether this Tricone is properly built. This is not a recommended practice - you must know what you are doing if you are going to open one of these things up.
So, while outwardly that cover-plate looks fine, looking at the back the soldering and assembly are a bit messy. And to avoid any rattles they have used some black plastic electrical tape round the sides - better safe than have a rattle or buzz, but... The cast-aluminium ‘T’ bridge appears well made and the boxwood bridge-piece is accurately fitted.
Unsurprisingly the cones made by Amistar at their factory and appear to be stamped, rather than the preferable method of spinning them. These cones sound fine but there is no doubt that a set of spun cones (made by National or Fine Resophonics, for example) would greatly improve this guitar. I was a little concerned to find that one of the three cones had started to collapse from string pressure. This is quite a common Tricone problem but should not happen with a brand new guitar. To be fair, it could have been damaged in transit and if I hadn’t opened the guitar I would never have noticed.
Inside the body, the cones rest on what looks like an ‘egg poaching dish’. The one fitted here is well constructed - a nice job. Unlike some cut-price resonators we get the proper through-body style of construction where a block of wood extends from the heel of the neck right through the guitar to the strap button. All in all this is the proper construction and it’s tidy enough and taking the price into consideration I am not worried about those stamped cones.
SOUNDS
Construction aside, the the Amistar is well balanced for a brass bodied resonator and feels ‘right’. It arrived, however, with a set of acoustic strings that weren’t going to maximise its potential. I fitted a set of UK made Newtone strings (which I helped design) and are gauged .016 to .059”. Heavy strings are important to get the best out of Tricones - you’ve got to get those cones shaking.
The factory set string height is a little low for most slide styles though the heavy gauge strings helped get some bite. But unlike an electric with its adjustable bridge, raising the string height is a professional job and even with the heavier strings it would be necessary here for a clean slide tone.
I initially tuned to open G (GDGGBD low to high ) and the guitar sounded and felt happy. With the lighter gauge strings supplied you would be better off in open A (EAEAC#E). The volume and projection is good for a Tricone and using thumbpick and fingerpicks it is typically loud - around five times the volume of your average wooden acoustic guitar.
The tone certainly captures the smoother bark of a Tricone, as opposed to the rawer sound of a single-cone resonator, but could be improved with better cones. Overall the sound is a little thinner than it could be, especially in the bass end. Again though with replacement cones and a good set-up you’d be chasing the real thing nicely. I’ve certainly played many old Nationals with the same problem that have been cured with some skilled adjustment to the neck and break-angle of the strings.
The slide sound is great for blues. It has good sustain and a bright character. I also found it worked well as a lap-steel/Hawaiian/Dobro-type of instrument. Compared to the original’s this guitar lacks some sweetness and finesse but don’t forget a 1920’s National Tricone (if you can find one) will cost around eight times more than this Amistar.
VERDICT
I never thought I’d see the day when a company based in the Czech Republic would be producing Tricones at under a thousand pounds! Frankly, this is what the real world of working musicians has been waiting for: resonator guitars that have good playability and tone with an affordable price tag. It’s not built to the same quality as similar guitars from National Reso-Phonic or Fine Resophonic, but that’s reflected in the price. Put simply, for 850 there is no other instrument like this available in the UK - this Amistar is therefore a really good buy. Currently the quoted prices are direct from the importer; should they start seling to stores in the UK then, of course, the price will rise accordingly. You may like to investigate this brand sooner rather than later - I really don’t think you’ll be dissapointed.
Michael Messer
FACTFILE
AMISTAR TRICONE
RRP: £850.00 (UK pounds sterling)
‘Style One’ Tricone acoustic resonator guitar. Unengraved bell-brass, nickel-plated body. Mahogany neck with 19 fret rosewood fingerboard and adjustable trusss rod. Neck joins body at halfway between the 11th and 12th fret. Three 6” aluminium-alloy National -type resonator cones. Gotoh enclosed high ratio tuners.
Options: The reviewed Style One Tricone is joined in the Amistar range by the Style Two with Wild Rose engraved pattern (1050), the Style Three with its Lilly of the Valley engraving (1150) and the Style Four with its Chrysanthemum pattern (1300). Amistar pick-up adds 75.
Range Options: Amistar also offer single cone instruments: a Style N (no engraving or sand-blasted finish) costs 750, the Style NC (800) adds a single-cutaway. The heavily engraved Style O DON costs 1100 and there’s a Style O with graphite body at 775.
Contact: Resound Dist, ‘Rosewain’, Main Street, Weston, Newark, Notts NG23 6ST. 01636 822185
DIMENSIONS
(In mm unless stated)

Scale Length 645 (25.4”)
Width of neck
...at nut 45
...at 12th fret 55
Depth of neck
...at 1st fret 23
...at 10th fret 34
String spacing
...at nut 36.5
...at bridge 55
Action as Supplied
...at 12th fret treble 3.7
...at 12th fret bass 5
Weight (kg/lbs) 3.6/8

CHECKOUT...
Most brass-bodied Tricones will cost considerably more than the reviewed Amistar. For example, NATIONAL’s Style One nickel-plated Tricone costs 2500, contact the Acoustic Centre 0171-265-1366. FINE RESOPHONIC GUITARS, based in Paris, offer a nickel-plated brass Tricone from around 1800. CONTINENTIAL use the same Amistar-made bell-brass body for their Tricone which is priced at 1800 - the only difference between the two is the neck, contact Ivor Mariants 0171-636-1481.  VINTAGE have their economy priced metal-bodied resonater at 599 (inc case) though of course this is a single-cone not a Tricone, contact JHS 0113-2865381
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