Some people believe you should never hurt the ones you love. If you have an investment-quality vintage guitar or a highly collectible instrument, you should not modify the guitar in any way. Any mods will devalue your instrument, and I don't want the responsibility resting on my shoulders. The instrument can be returned to its original appearance. With these two slight modifications to your instrument, you can have what I believe is the pinnacle of acoustic amplification.
Installation is a snap.
Simply loosen the two screws on either side of the pickup, drop it in place, slide it into position and tighten the screws. The hard part is positioning the microphone for optimum tone. The amount of bass through the mic increases as it is positioned pointing toward the sound board. Pointing it directly toward the strings increases the amount of pick noise. Fishman's Rare Earth soundhole pickups represent a large leap in sound performance.