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UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
NAGD Vintage V300MH
Apologies to the FB members who like an actual pic but I don't know how to do that so here's just a pic from the Vintage website. Anyway, a plain and simple guitar, so nothing too exciting on the visuals.
Vintage V300 Acoustic Folk Guitar ~ Mahogany – VintageGuitarsRus
Have been hankering after a Parlour acoustic for some time. Also don't have a mahogany topped instrument, didn't want electrics, don't have megabucks currently and don't like bling. So when I found this nice little student guitar whilst wondering around York this weekend it ticked several boxes and it sounds great.
Thanks to RWB Music in York who sold it me at a good price. I needed a guitar to play on the bench outside in the summer or on the sofa and, at this shop you walk in the door and there's an old sofa! Marvellous. (Thanks also to Banks Musicroom in York city centre who let me try some nice Takamine Parlours (necks too narrow) and the new Fender Paramount PS 220 which was a bit disappointing tonally, none of which I bought.)
Firstly, the tone and sustain from this guitar, even before I fiddled with the action, were very impressive. For £220 its really very good. The action was high at the nut and the bridge and the neck relief was overly tight and I have made initial adjustments to all three and swapped the cheap plastic bridge pins for some Martin white plastic ones. I think the initial strings are phosphor bronze. The Vintage website doesn't specify.
The top and sides are solid mahogany. Again impressive at this price range. There's no inlays, purfling or rosette to speak of. In fact I suspect the rosette may be a (herring bone pattern) transfer, but I can't be sure. I don't care. You don't particularly notice the lack of purfling etc on an instrument where the body (and neck) are all of the same wood. The bridge and fingerboard are both mahogany too. The nut is narrow, 43mm when I measured it c.f. 44mm on my FG5 and OM28, but the neck is full and definitely feels more of a handful than the other parlour instruments I have tried. I was going off the idea of getting a parlour altogether because of the small necks before I played this.
There are no quiet notes or wolf notes anywhere up to the 5th fret on any of the strings, and that's unusual on any instrument! Beyond the 5th fret all seems well too. Strangely on an instrument with good sustain, harmonics are quite quiet. Perhaps that's just parlours. I've never had one before. The tone is woody and rounded. Not at all bright but nice. It doesn't need to be made any more woody with ebony pins IMO. Eventually I will try Monel MM12s on it but I have no idea how they will sound. I may change the bridge pins to bone too. The nut has 'Nubone' stamped on it. This is a slightly softer version of Tusq from Graph Tec.
Siting on my sofa, it's very comfortable to play, which is what I wanted. It's slightly bigger than a typical parlour. I compared it with my classical and its very similar, just a little narrower in the upper bout. The machine heads are closed chrome generic ones and are of intermediate quality but seem quite steady and smooth. The head is a pleasant Martinoid shape and there is a very nice pearloid 'Vintage' inlay. All quite understated and pleasant.
All round a nice instrument and exceptionally good value. I think Vintage guitars are designed in the UK and assembled in Korea from Chinese parts.
Vintage V300 Acoustic Folk Guitar ~ Mahogany – VintageGuitarsRus
Have been hankering after a Parlour acoustic for some time. Also don't have a mahogany topped instrument, didn't want electrics, don't have megabucks currently and don't like bling. So when I found this nice little student guitar whilst wondering around York this weekend it ticked several boxes and it sounds great.
Thanks to RWB Music in York who sold it me at a good price. I needed a guitar to play on the bench outside in the summer or on the sofa and, at this shop you walk in the door and there's an old sofa! Marvellous. (Thanks also to Banks Musicroom in York city centre who let me try some nice Takamine Parlours (necks too narrow) and the new Fender Paramount PS 220 which was a bit disappointing tonally, none of which I bought.)
Firstly, the tone and sustain from this guitar, even before I fiddled with the action, were very impressive. For £220 its really very good. The action was high at the nut and the bridge and the neck relief was overly tight and I have made initial adjustments to all three and swapped the cheap plastic bridge pins for some Martin white plastic ones. I think the initial strings are phosphor bronze. The Vintage website doesn't specify.
The top and sides are solid mahogany. Again impressive at this price range. There's no inlays, purfling or rosette to speak of. In fact I suspect the rosette may be a (herring bone pattern) transfer, but I can't be sure. I don't care. You don't particularly notice the lack of purfling etc on an instrument where the body (and neck) are all of the same wood. The bridge and fingerboard are both mahogany too. The nut is narrow, 43mm when I measured it c.f. 44mm on my FG5 and OM28, but the neck is full and definitely feels more of a handful than the other parlour instruments I have tried. I was going off the idea of getting a parlour altogether because of the small necks before I played this.
There are no quiet notes or wolf notes anywhere up to the 5th fret on any of the strings, and that's unusual on any instrument! Beyond the 5th fret all seems well too. Strangely on an instrument with good sustain, harmonics are quite quiet. Perhaps that's just parlours. I've never had one before. The tone is woody and rounded. Not at all bright but nice. It doesn't need to be made any more woody with ebony pins IMO. Eventually I will try Monel MM12s on it but I have no idea how they will sound. I may change the bridge pins to bone too. The nut has 'Nubone' stamped on it. This is a slightly softer version of Tusq from Graph Tec.
Siting on my sofa, it's very comfortable to play, which is what I wanted. It's slightly bigger than a typical parlour. I compared it with my classical and its very similar, just a little narrower in the upper bout. The machine heads are closed chrome generic ones and are of intermediate quality but seem quite steady and smooth. The head is a pleasant Martinoid shape and there is a very nice pearloid 'Vintage' inlay. All quite understated and pleasant.
All round a nice instrument and exceptionally good value. I think Vintage guitars are designed in the UK and assembled in Korea from Chinese parts.
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Comments
Regarding strings, I know its a very individual thing, but I find phosphor bronze on smaller bodied guitar help all the frequencies to shine at the same time. Not a big fan of Monels , even on vintage guitars if I'm honest.
Enjoy !
I did put Monels on it too, and although I didn't think they sounded as good as phosphor bronze acoustically, it was because I wanted to use a magnetic pickup for slightly overdriven acoustic-electric sounds, for which it was actually extremely good.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
The overall build quality is down c.f. the Martin, for example, the pin holes on the bridge are less tidily drilled out, although the seam finishes are surprisingly perfect! (Amazingly, what I paid for the Vintage is approx 7% of the £3K'ish you'd pay for the Martin OM28 Standard now, so my comparisons about build quality are a little unworthy perhaps!)
:-)
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
My personal definition for parlour also means 12 fret.
I bought an early one on the back of the reviews, it was a nice pleasant guitar that for the price was indeed a good purchase.
I ended up picking up a ridiculously cheap V300MH & then traded the spruce topped one, as the MH is simply better in every way. Still got mine & I have to say my experiences mirrored those of @ICBM
if you want to generalise, then its a "guitar smaller than a 0"
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
I read somewhere that the word "parlour" only came into use in the 60's or 70's. No idea if that's true.
Is it the case that all dreads were in fact 12 frets? Martin simply changed the upper bout to join at the 14th, creating what we know as dreadnought today.
Nut 43.34mm.
Lower bout 38.5cm (10 cm deep)
Upper bout 26.5cm (9 cm deep)
Body length 49.4 cm
* Weight 1.735 kg (3lb 13.2oz)
Hope this helps
other spellings may be available
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
I am probably wrong to have described it as a parlour guitar. Maybe 'small acoustic' would have been better.
For someone whose usual sofa guitar is an FG or a brick-like Regal resonator this little Vintage is comfy, to me anyway. But I'm tall, so someone smaller might still appreciate a Martin single O or sub-single O size. Personally I'm much more likely to reach for this little fella when I head for the sofa but that doesn't constitute the entire definition of parlour by the sound of it!
Just enjoy playing & don't call it 'she'
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
The mahogany looks nicer, though!
Have now finalised setup on V300. Martin MM12. Phospher Bronze were a little nicer, but I think I will keep with Monels because of longer life. Martin white plastic bridge pins are fine so I've kept them on having swapped them in initially. Action considerably lowered to 2mm for 6th string at 12th fret and a (for me) really quite low 1.25mm for 1st string. The only unusual thing was that I needed to more or less completely loosen off the neck relief and the neck still has a good gentle bow with no buzzing. Observe. The neck is slightly narrow for me but the lower action has helped me to get my left hand fingers down without damping adjacent strings.
The action is now much better playability wise and I continue to be impressed with the tone of this lovely little instrument. Hopefully there is some more improvement to come as the top plays in. Do mahogany tops play in? Never had one before.
Lovely. Would recommend as long as you have access to adjust action, which was high. That's not a criticism. Many manufacturers ship high actions.
Well done Vintage. How do you do it at the price!