Somewhat tangential rant here, sorry: Behringer gear is hit or miss in my experience, I'd be interested to hear how that Ultracoustic feels to you a year or two later, Bruce.   Their prices are unbeatable and the quality is variable...I've come to think that their lower-ticket items, like mini-boards and $40 effects pedals, are better value than the ones that are really for professional use. A friend of mine bought a 16-channel(or more) Behringer board for a theatre production (bought a Behringer instead of renting a better one), and was so dissatisfied she sent it back two nights into the show run--borrowed a Yamaha from a local tech and repatched the whole sound setup on a show day. Talk about stress! My feeling about Behringer is they engineer a lot of features into their products which don't necessarily make sense on the ground--in other words, the engineers run the show and the design process is not need-driven.

I have a Behringer 10-channel powered board which drives me nuts cause the channels have different levels--you're supposed to use the first four channels for vocals, the next for keyboards, then guitars etc. As if all bands have the same lineup of instruments as the Beatles! Worse yet, they don't all do what they're supposed to. Give me equal output right across the board, I don't want to think that hard about where to plug in the guitar with the hot pickup--its too loud in one channel, barely audible in the next. Just dumb designing. Whereas my little 6-channel add-on Behringer board is handy as hell.

But to get back to the matter at hand, I have a 2-channel Peavey Ecoustic 112 and highly recommend it. It's somewhat larger than most of the acoustic amps you see around. I paid $650 Cdn in 2002, a used one would probably be a good buy now. The current model, the Ecoustic 112 EFX, has 3 channels and looks to have improved in some ways ($700 at Guitar Center).

Now, it's out of his current price range--but have a look at this. They really work well, I have seen and heard the results:
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Fishman-SA220-Solo-Performance-System---Acoustic-Guitar-Combo-Amp-104986245-i1401135.gc

Now that's intelligent design! And easy on the back.

W-O