Expensive Acoustics. A waste of money? Or not.

Pjon · August 2022

This weekend I visited some friends in Devon, and played a cheap, laminate Yamaha, and a Martin 000 12 fret all mahogany, which is about 12 years old and was about £1300 back then. I didn't take my £600 all-solid Cort with me (I should have - it was a nice weekend of open fires, beer, wine and lots of playing guitar together which I rarely get to do!)

Anyway, the Yamaha was playable but felt and sounded cheap, unsurprisingly, but was the guitar that was left in full sunlight next to the river, etc.

The Martin was very nice. It is the most expensive guitar I've ever played. It sounded good and played easily. I was very happy, however, that it wasn't a huge amount better than my Cort - there was definitely a difference, but maybe more noticeable for the player than listener?. I wonder if a set up on mine would close the small gap a bit more.. So, now I want a Martin, and know that I can justify the cost, but still don't know whether I need to. I am no closer to answering the original question posed.

Mellish · August 2022

@Pjon ; - your Cort's playability - plays easily? If so, not sure a setup would close the gap to the Martin

Pjon · August 2022

Mellish said:

@Pjon ; - your Cort's playability - plays easily? If so, not sure a setup would close the gap to the Martin

It does. It was very good out of the box, so to speak. The action could maybe be lowered ever so slightly, but I haven't got around to looking at the saddle yet, which probably shows that I don't need to!.

Btw, I'm definitely not saying that the Cort is as good as a Martin.

Tannin · August 2022

There are a lot of different Martins, but a 12-fret 000 all-mahogany is probably a 000-15. These are a medium-cheap guitar by Martin standards, down towards the bottom of their made-in-America range, well below the first "proper" Martins, which are the "Standard" series - say about two-thirds the price of a Standard Martin, give or take.

I've played a few (not that exact model but similar) and they are good guitars, but for the $3000-odd (AUD) they cost, they are underwhelming. For the same money, here in Oz, I can get an obviously superior guitar from the local makers (Maton and Cole Clark, probably Fenech too) or a made-in-Japan Takamine or Yamaha, or a Furch, not to mention a host of made-in-China things the merits of which I am less sure of.

In the UK, the Oz guitars are expensive, but there are several European makers who should be more than capable of providing an instrument of genuine stand-out quality for that price, not to mention the ever-competitive Japanese.

What I'm saying here is that that Martin is not an expensive guitar. Pretty good, sure. But you can do better for the same money. And for not a whole lot more money you can step up into a different world. (That "different world" *will* be a lot more money if you buy Martin, or Gibson - both notoriously overpriced - but not worlds apart if you go for one of the brands that sell on quality rather than reputation.)

One more thing - all mahogany guitars are a very different animal. Like all-Blackwood and all-Koa guitars, they use a middle-weight timber normally used for back and sides as a top timber. They don't sound like normal spruce-top guitars and they don't play like them. So beware of mixing up the different materials with the different makes.

OK, one other more thing. The "easy playing" is mainly a matter of setup. Martins (like most guitars) come from the factory not very well set up. This is normal. The cost of a set up to your liking is something you should factor into the purchase of any new guitar - and if you took your Cort to a luthier or tech, you could have it set up exactly the way you want. It is not expensive, and absolutely worth doing.

PS: will the listener hear the difference? Who cares? Screw the listener! The listener doesn't have to play it, you do! (And the more you like it and the better it plays, the better you play.)

Mellish · August 2022

Pjon said:

Mellish said:

@Pjon ; - your Cort's playability - plays easily? If so, not sure a setup would close the gap to the Martin

It does. It was very good out of the box, so to speak. The action could maybe be lowered ever so slightly, but I haven't got around to looking at the saddle yet, which probably shows that I don't need to!.

Btw, I'm definitely not saying that the Cort is as good as a Martin.

Well, tweaking the action, changing nut
/saddle material and experimenting with strings and gauges might inch you closer. BUT...

you mentioned you want a Martin. If *that's* it, only a Martin will do

jaymenon · August 2022

My 0.02c

Go to a shop that sells a shedload of acoustic guitars - and play about 50 of them.

Even if you're playing middle of the range instruments, chances are you'll find one instrument that far exceeds the sum of its parts.

Listen more to how it sounds and responds - as @Tannin said, you can get it set up to perfection by your own guitar tech.

Yes it's true that construction/manufacturing techniques make a difference, but at the same time these are not a secret and many midrange manufacturers incorporate excellent techniques in their building process.

I believe that even if you commission, very carefully, an acoustic guitar from a truly excellent maker, you still cannot predict exactly how it will sound and play given the intrinsic variability of the different pieces of wood(s) involved - and whether the pieces of wood in any particular guitar will work synergistically together. (e.g. all Martin D28s do not sound and play the same).

I had a Collings OM1A with the shellac finish. Very, very nice guitar, and my guitar technician told me it was the most perfectly made guitar he had ever seen.

However, I found a cedar / mahogany Maestro Singa hanging on the wall of a music shop in Singapore, 'reduced' as a second. It didn't even come with a hard case. Cost me £500.

It blew everything I had ever played out of the water.

The Collings was gone shortly thereafter.

stickyfiddle · August 2022

Mellish said:

Pjon said:

Mellish said:

@Pjon ; - your Cort's playability - plays easily? If so, not sure a setup would close the gap to the Martin

It does. It was very good out of the box, so to speak. The action could maybe be lowered ever so slightly, but I haven't got around to looking at the saddle yet, which probably shows that I don't need to!.

Btw, I'm definitely not saying that the Cort is as good as a Martin.

Well, tweaking the action, changing nut
/saddle material and experimenting with strings and gauges might inch you closer. BUT...

you mentioned you want a Martin. If *that's* it, only a Martin will do

Until you play a Bourgeois...

jaymenon · August 2022

PS. That same day, I played another 12 or so Maestros and none of them were as good as this one…

… and this one wasn’t even the model that I originally had had my eyes on.

ICBM · August 2022

stickyfiddle said:
you mentioned you want a Martin. If *that's* it, only a Martin will do

Until you play a Bourgeois...

I have. Didn’t like it, would take the Martin every time. Likewise with Huss & Dalton, Collings, Atkin. I prefer Gibsons to those as well.

However… yesterday I acquired an expensive handmade acoustic, which is very similar in spec to a cheap mass-produced one I had last year. (OK, solid back/sides vs laminate and slot-head 12-fret not solid-head 14-fret, but reasonably so.)

The cheap one was quite nice. But the expensive one is, genuinely, an incredible amount better. Is it twelve times better? (The rough difference in new retail price.) No, but it seems closer to that than it does to only slightly better, to me.

Bork · August 2022

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before but there's generally a law of diminishing returns in the musical instrument game. The difference between a 500 quid instrument and a 1500 quid instrument is tangible. The difference between a 1500 quid instrument and a 500 quid instrument much less so. Plus the extra stuff that is added to those 5000 quid instruments isn't justified by the price difference. I deliberately look for instruments from the late eighties and early nineties because at that time, they were still being built without short cuts but are generally still great value for money.

Tannin · August 2022

Are expensive acoustics worth the money?

Look at it this way. I've just spent half an hour playing a guitar which would cost around £4500 in the UK. Is it twice the guitar that, say, the Maton Messiah is? (£2500, give or take.) No. Is it three times the guitar that the SRS-60 is? (£1400ish.) Certainly not!.

But suppose I had a choice: give up the expensive one, or give up both the other two and .. oh .. and my Guild as well. That adds up to about the same cost, three against one. Truth be told, I'd keep the WA May. So in that sense, it really is three times as good.

So yes, it is worth it.

ToneControl · August 2022

Bork said:

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before but there's generally a law of diminishing returns in the musical instrument game. The difference between a 500 quid instrument and a 1500 quid instrument is tangible. The difference between a 1500 quid instrument and a 500 quid instrument much less so. Plus the extra stuff that is added to those 5000 quid instruments isn't justified by the price difference. I deliberately look for instruments from the late eighties and early nineties because at that time, they were still being built without short cuts but are generally still great value for money.

I disagree very much
1500 to 5000 (I assume you meant) is still a big difference in my experience

I'd agree if your threshold was £3000

Pigknows · August 2022

Jaymenon's post echoes my experience.

Play lots of guitars - one will click, and you might be pleasantly surprised that it's not a brand guitar or one that is particularly expensive. Take internet wisdom and other people's views, including mine, with a pinch of salt, with the caveat that you'll probably want a guitar that will stay in tune and won't have or develop structural issues.

This happened for me with a cheap old Guild D25 that I found in a pawn shop years ago, which had a split in the side and smelt like it had spent most of its life in a working men's club in the 70s. It played and sounded great.

I quickly sold off my Taylor's, which admittedly we're beautifully made and played great, but which just didn't have that sound. I've owned a few high end Martin's too but have always ended up selling them.

Since then, I've sought out Guilds, and my favourites are by no means the most expensive models.

Caveat - I'm not a solo instrumentsl acoustic player, but play to accompany songs

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Expensive Acoustics. A waste of money? Or not.

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