School me on the Aura system in a Gibson 165?

[ryanfender]

Posting this from the AGF. The original poster can't get logged into this forum for some reason. I thought I would help.

 

 

 

I'm looking at a Gibson CJ-165 guitar, a really sweet small-bodied acoustic. From what I can gather, the 165 was originally called the CJ-165 and was offered in non-cutaway version, and a cutaway as the CJ-165CE. The CE usually came with the in-soundhole Aura system, with the switchable mic profiles.

 

Now, the guitar is called a J-165 and only available in the cutaway version. That guitar you have your choice of the Aura or a simple Baggs pickup.

 

The guitars I saw both are CJ's with the Baggs pickup, which is just a volume control in the soundhole. I'm trying to figure out how much "better" the Aura system is, and if it's worth ordering the guitar and waiting for. Alternatively, if it's possible to just buy the Aura device outboard and plug the Baggs output into it, that would be useful as well.

 

Any thoughts? The Gibson forum won't let me register, won't accept any password I try to give it, so I thought I'd ask here.