The ones I've played in shops are not at all bad. DDW (who isn't here very often now) has one which is a very nice bit of kit indeed. Obviously at the price it's not a Collings, but it's as good as anything else in the mid-price Seagull/Takamine/Tanglewood kind of area - good value-for-money instruments.

As always though with cheaper instruments, make sure that the shop has done a proper setup on them. Our local shop has a 5-string Cort bass that I was very tempted by, but they've left the truss rod so low that the strings are practically brushing the frets, which suggests that there may be other problems caused by bad storage/setup which aren't as obvious. Caveat emptor.

Graham.