Parlour Guitar

rustneversleeps · April 2023

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grahambythesea · April 2023

I have a K Yiari parlour sized 12 fret spruce top rosewood back. Sounds great much louder than you might expect. Slightly wider neck at the nut and 24 3/4 scale so really comfy to play. As they are hand made in Japan they are not in the budget league but worth looking out for.

PAL · April 2023

Taylor GS mini for sure.

rossi · April 2023

The PRS is a fine parlor what ever wood it has .Love mine .Sounds a bargain .

rustneversleeps · April 2023

rossi said:

The PRS is a fine parlor what ever wood it has .Love mine .Sounds a bargain .

At that price I tried one out and it went home with me.Overall finish is excellent and plays nice.Added Martin retro Mondel strings.Not fair to compare with it my more expensive acoustics.So overall quite pleased.

Pjon · April 2023

PAL said:

Taylor GS mini for sure.

I played one yesterday and wasn't that impressed considering the cost. Admittedly it was in a windy car-park and the strings were a little dead, but I was expecting a little more.

Yorkie · April 2023

The PRS plays and sounds great. I've got the black one with the piezo pickup. For ~£330 it was, I think, a good buy. I have bonded really well with that guitar, but I think it's all down to the size and scale length and nothing else.

Tannin · April 2023

thomasross20 said:

thomasross20 said:

Oasis Music in Ringwood have a used P-05 in stock for £1395 (not on website currently)
There's also a used Larrivee P-01 walnut for £695 on Reverb
I know this because I just bought another guitar (yes.... truth)

So.... I managed to score a rare (used) cedar-topped, walnut back & sides Larrivee.

Oiled the fretboard, changed strings etc - very nice sound (think of Lowden cedar/walnut) but as per tonewood charts you can see it's got quite a bit of treble and too piercing a treble doesn't go well with my old eardrums (I thought the cedar would have tamed it but alas, not). So unfortunately going to return - I now know I am not big on harder woods that give too much bass and particularly too much treble (never liked koa for this reason) - softer woods all the way for me. So actually - good old mahogany / sapele is my best bet and it's no wonder I always like playing those guitars. The Bhilwara I recently got, I must say, is fantastic - softer than rosewood so you don't get the high-end shrill. With bass oomph and the resonance of rosewood but the woody sound of mahogany. So in effect I have 3 different types of mahogany guitar-

-- sapele (less mid-range hump, slightly wider frequency range low & high than mahogany)
-- "genuine" mahogany
-- Bhilwara

I am now absolutely exhausted from buying guitars, my house looking like a guitar shop. It ends now lol

For your interest, @thomasross20, density, hardness, and elasticity (strength, more-or-less) for your three, expressed relative to mahogany:

* Honduran Mahogany 100% (100%) 100% (natch)
* Sapele 114% (156%) 105%.

* Black Sirus aka Bhilwarra aka Ceylon Rosewood 129% (181%) 117%
* Indian Rosewood 141% (270%) 114%

Or, expressed relative to rosewood:

* Honduran Mahogany 71% (37%) 87%
* Sapele 81% (58%) 92%

* Black Sirus aka Bhilwarra aka Ceylon Rosewood 92% (67%) 102%
* Indian Rosewood 100% (100%) 100% (natch)

The key points to note (as I see it) is that Sapele - often used as a mahogany substitute - is much harder than mahogany (56%), and that Bhilwarra (often compared to rosewood) is quite a lot softer than rosewood (33%).

By the way, I have it in mind in 2024 or 2025 when I next go to Sri Lanka for a few weeks to order a guitar from a Sri Lankan maker, using Sri Lankan native tonewoods. Celon Rosewood (Bhilwarra) is an obvious candidate. I don't really know how the instrument will play, and that's not the main point: I love Sri Lanka and it will be nice to have a hand-crafted reminder in my living room when I'm getting too old to travel to the steamy tropics. It won't cost much - maybe a quarter or a sixth of what I'd expect to spend on a hand-made guitar in Australia or the US or UK - and (who knows?) it might turn out to be a lot of fun to play as well.

As with my British guitar project, there are lots and lots of good local timbers to make necks, fretboards, and back & sides from, but finding a local softwood for the top will be difficult.

thomasross20 · April 2023

That's cool info re those woods!

I swear the moon spruce top ony Bhilwara mellows the sound a bit, in a really satisfying way.

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