The Martin DCX1-E is a smaller bodied acoustic guitar made with mostly composite materials. The top is solid sitka spruce, but the back and sides are a high-pressure laminate or "HPL" with a textured mahogany appearance, the neck is made of "stratabond" which is a fancy way of saying they glued up a bunch of scrap and milled a neck out of it, and the fingerboard is made of something called "black micarta". I have not a clue what that is or if any tree was used for its creation. Even the face of the headstock is some synthetic veneer. This guitar has 20 frets, 14 of which are easily accesible by the cutaway.
It features a Fishman Classic 4 pickup/preamp. I noticed the no-frills approach to this guitar, with it having no inlays, no binding, and a simple rosette. Martin cut all kinds of corners to keep this guitar under 700.00 I guess.

The neck had a nice feel to it, a smooth finish (if you could call it that) that allowed for easy movement up and down the neck. The cutaway is convenient for playing higher than a standard acoustic would allow. The body seemed fairly thin to me, compared to my 1970's Martin Sigma, and it was quite comfortable to play sitting down, or standing up.
I was impressed with the sound as I played it, to the point that it made me scratch my head wondering how they can make a guitar sound so typically "martin-esque" when most of it is not even WOOD!

To be honest, I kinda want to hate this guitar. The materials in it are fairly untested and unfamiliar to me so I don't know how well they will hold up compared to more expensive Martin models that are, umm.... actually made with wood. But I do like its sound. Though not spectacular by any means, it is fairly warm and full, and by all counts very sweet and mellow sounding. It seemed to lack a bit of volume and projection since its got less cavity size than most guitars. Though there are exceptions; my ears usually don't have much patience for most guitars in the $500 range, or even <$1000 range for Martin. So I was suprised when I didn't want to put this guitar down. I could have sat and played it all day because whether it was chords, or single note runs, or graceful fingerpicking there was a sweetness of tone shining through. I genuinely enjoyed this guitar.

The Epiphone AJ200SCE has a 25.5" scale, with mahogany neck and sides, and solid spruce top. It features an Epiphone-made Shadow pickup and a cutaway for ease in playing higher on the fret-board. The solid spruce top and pickup suprised me to have both of these features on a guitar that retails under $300.00.

I didn't particularly enjoy playing this guitar. It did not inspire my playing in the slightest, and I had no problem putting it down after a short bit of playing.

The neck had a nice feel to it, a good thickness and nice-feeling radius for string-bending and single-note runs as well as chording. The cutaway allows great access to the upper fretboard when you desire it.
The tone and overall sound did not initially impress me.

While this guitar boasts a feel and ease-of-play that is rare for this low of a price range, its sound did not impress me in the slightest. It sounded muffled and lacking the volume and projection I would expect of a full-size guitar such as this, although new strings could have revived it a bit. The sound was balanced; not harsh in mids or shrill in the highs, or boomy or muddy in the low end. But it was lacking in dymanics, responding very coldly to my finger picking and varying pick attack.

First off let me just say that I don't consider myself an "advanced" player. I've been playing for about 20 years, I'm self taught so that means it took me longer than usual to learn to play. I'm mainly a strummer and simple picker. Having said that, on with this:
Made in Korea. (Meh, at least it's not made in China) :-)
20 frets, the last fret is accessible by advanced players but anything past the 13th fret I found difficult.
Nice pickup (TKN4 I believe but not 100% sure) with 3 band equalizer, volume control, notch filter control with on/off button, mid contour on/off and EQ on/off buttons.
Standard acoustic guitar neck, just normal stuff here.
All around this guitar feels solid and well made.

Neck does have a nice feel. Top frets are accessible. I like the shape, it's a great guitar for strummers especially. The dreadnought body is nice to hug and just pound away on.
This was my second guitar, my first was a Yamaha FG410 acoustic. Compared to my first guitar, this EG530C was a dream to play and MUCH easier on the hand.

It's a bit difficult to play standing up but most acoustics with the large body will be I guess. I do not like that it has a pin for the strap on the body bottom but no second pin. This means you have to "jurry rig" a tie for the left side of the strap at the top of the neck. Not a "really" big deal, but a bit of an annoyance.

One can get a really nice sound out of this guitar in any number of ways; however, one can also get a "not very great" sound too. You just have to play around with the EQ on the guitar and whatever you're plugging it into and you definitely CAN get a very nice sound from this baby. Anyone saying different is just being a bit unfair and lazy in my humble opinion.

I like to play folk/rock so this guitar has always given me the kind of sound I like.
I use this guitar mainly through a PA system at church, unplugged and plugged into my BR-600 digital recording studio. In all these situations, this guitar has been more that satisfactory.

I find the best settings for this guitar through the PA system is bass and treble set slightly above flat and mid range left at flat (or in the middle).
This guitar can sound a bit "tinny" when plugged into recording devices (depending on the device of coarse) but this can easily be overcome by playing with the EQ on the Guitar and with control/effects from recording device. This guitar sounds amazing through chorus pedals/effects by the way.

I've heard people complain about the sound of this guitar unplugged but I think it's because they just didn't age it properly. My guitar has a nice sound, a little bright on the high strings but overall a very nice sounding guitar. I let it stand in front of my TV and stereo when not in use, always have. This allows the wood to age and pick up all the tones while it's aging. If you only play country chords on a guitar, eventually, rock chords will not sound as sweet as the country chords. So, in my opinion, the best way to age a guitar is to let it "feel" and "absorb" all the tones possible, even when not playing it.