LEH Offset 5 w/Quilt Top & Blocks #169

Ellis Hahn built instruments at Sadowsky Guitars in New York for 16 years before relocating to Portland and putting his full attention into LEH. The Offset came out of that transition: the first design he drew up to be built repeatedly, an answer to problems he'd been turning over for most of a career. It's still the instrument that tells you what LEH is about.

Balance drove the shape. That deep waist offset puts the center of gravity where a 5-string needs it, and the chambering is confined to the neck side of the body, dropping weight without dulling the lower bout's response. It hangs correctly and stays there from downbeat to last call. Colin Greenwood of Radiohead plays one. So does Tim Lefebvre, whose credits run from Bowie's Blackstar sessions through Tedeschi Trucks Band, The Black Crowes, Wayne Krantz, and Elvis Costello.

Quartersawn maple neck, graphite reinforcement, thin matte nitro that disappears under your hand after a few seconds of playing. The headstock is oversized on purpose: mass in the right place kills the dead spots common to 34" bolt-on designs. Nordstrand's 3-band preamp handles treble, mids, and bass as faders, with a push-pull bypass on the volume knob, so you can read your settings across a dark stage. Hipshot Ultralites, a hand-shaped Tusq nut, and a magnetic battery door with no screwdriver and no plastic tab waiting to snap.

A thousand-plus instruments in, Hahn knows which details earn their place.