How right you are, Tunesmith. That horrible "synthetic" sound has been accepted by many guitarists as a satisfactory compromise between a true acoustic sound and an amplified version. However, Martin Carthy is the one notable guitarist who manages to produce a great sound while using a pick-up. I'm not sure of the technical specifications of his set-up but I saw him in two very different venues on his recent tour of the U.S. and the sound was consistently good.