I bought one of those Applause guitars in '78; aluminum neck–yick. Replaced it with a Balladeer less than six months later. The pick-up was so hot, it overloaded the pre-amp, so out came the p-a. Hooked the p-u straight to the output jack, into a chorus pedal, sweeet!
Never liked the sound of it when I was playing, but when I’d be somewhere and a fellow picker asked to try it, it sounded fantastic. I put one finish crack in the top, but it never gave me a lick of trouble. After 35 years, I sold it earlier this year to a lawyer who does luthiery as a hobby–it got banged up badly at a gig some time back and I didn’t want to spend $400 on repairs/refinishing and still have 35 year old guitar problems. So I sold it to the lawyer for chump change, he’ll trick it up, he’s happy as a clam and I’m glad the old workhorse has a new home.
In the mid-to-late '70s EVERYBODY had Ovations: Heart, ELO, McCartney, Cat Stevens, Dave Messina, I think Rush.