Firstly i'm no expert, however i know what i wanted and the Takamine TRI-AX gave it to me!... I wanted a sound hole pickup that i could just bung in the guitar, remove if i wanted to and would allow me to just plug in and play....but....most importantly, gave a natural acoustic guitar sound, and thats what its does. Out of the box with no adjustment its sounds better that i thought it would, natural! Active/passive switch difficult to get to (located on base of unit) but not a major problem. Build quality seems ok. Mine is installed in a Yamaha LL11 and i'm very pleased with it.