If you can, Guest, find an experienced acoustic guitar player to go with you, play the instrument, and give you his or her opinion of it. Nothing else counts like experience.

The "blindfold" method would work great if we were only after sound, Richard. ;-) I always want 3 things in a guitar:

1. the right sound!
2. the right ergonomic feel (neck setup, action, etc)
3. I like it to also look good!

If I can't find those 3 things in combination, I don't buy it. If I find it ugly looking or just not that inspiring, I don't care how good it sounds....with patience, I can always find a really good looking guitar that sounds equally good as the "ugly" one does, and I'll enjoy it much more that way.

Along that line...I've played the odd Gibson which was pretty darned good in terms of how it sounded, but I just don't like the way they look at all. As for Ovation, those things are really good for changing the oil on your car...you just remove the plastic back and use it as an oil pan. The rest of the instrument you can use as kindling, I suppose... (grin)