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UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
West Midlands guitar shop road trip
I'm looking for a good bang-for-the-buck OM/OOO in the £1000 as I'm not particularly enamoured with the tone of my Larrivee OM-03R, it's got a sweet tone for fingerstyle but not much in the bass department. Looking for a warmer sound it seemed that cedar/mahogany might be the way to go.
Living in Hull there aren't many places with much of a selection in that area, so while the wife was away cat sitting in London (don't ask) I thought I'd take a trip to shops I wouldn't normally get to. Top of the list was Richards Guitars and as Birmingham has a couple of decent shops I headed down for a couple of days.
GG and PMT didn't really have that much in my target area, didn't bother with PMT but GG have an Eastman E2OM at £530. I already have an E8OM-TC so I'm familiar with the quality, but I wasn't expecting to be so impressed with the tone, warm but clear with decent bass, much preferred it to my Larrivee. For the hell of it i also tried a Maton EBW808 in Blackwood and a Lowden F23 in cedar and walnut, lovely guitars. I was already battling against some guy shredding lead guitar but when the bassist started up I gave up.
Onto Richards the following day. I was surprised to find I'd had to make an appointment and could only get 2pm, a two hour slot. I had to leave my hotel at 10am so had 4 hours to kill, not too many nicer places to do that than Stratford-on-Avon.
On arrival at Richards I was surprised to find it wasn't a traditional shop but an industrial unit. The appointment system made perfect sense though. I was left alone in a roomful of acoustics for two hours with no one to compete against, superb experience. If expressed an interest in cedar mahogany Audens and Furchs so they were set out for me, but I was free to try anything in the room.
I was very impressed with the Auden Chester, lovely tone with great bass if a little soft in the treble, but I was blown away by the Furch Blue OM CM. I couldn't believe how strong the bass was and how much volume it puts out in what's quite a slim body. There's definitely some alchemy at work. Like everyone I've heard great things about Furch but I didn't expect to be this impressed. And it was the cheapest of the bunch. Suffice to say I bought it, just waiting now for the set up they provide in with the price. And I thought I didn't like cats.
Sorry, I rambled on a lot more than intended!
Living in Hull there aren't many places with much of a selection in that area, so while the wife was away cat sitting in London (don't ask) I thought I'd take a trip to shops I wouldn't normally get to. Top of the list was Richards Guitars and as Birmingham has a couple of decent shops I headed down for a couple of days.
GG and PMT didn't really have that much in my target area, didn't bother with PMT but GG have an Eastman E2OM at £530. I already have an E8OM-TC so I'm familiar with the quality, but I wasn't expecting to be so impressed with the tone, warm but clear with decent bass, much preferred it to my Larrivee. For the hell of it i also tried a Maton EBW808 in Blackwood and a Lowden F23 in cedar and walnut, lovely guitars. I was already battling against some guy shredding lead guitar but when the bassist started up I gave up.
Onto Richards the following day. I was surprised to find I'd had to make an appointment and could only get 2pm, a two hour slot. I had to leave my hotel at 10am so had 4 hours to kill, not too many nicer places to do that than Stratford-on-Avon.
On arrival at Richards I was surprised to find it wasn't a traditional shop but an industrial unit. The appointment system made perfect sense though. I was left alone in a roomful of acoustics for two hours with no one to compete against, superb experience. If expressed an interest in cedar mahogany Audens and Furchs so they were set out for me, but I was free to try anything in the room.
I was very impressed with the Auden Chester, lovely tone with great bass if a little soft in the treble, but I was blown away by the Furch Blue OM CM. I couldn't believe how strong the bass was and how much volume it puts out in what's quite a slim body. There's definitely some alchemy at work. Like everyone I've heard great things about Furch but I didn't expect to be this impressed. And it was the cheapest of the bunch. Suffice to say I bought it, just waiting now for the set up they provide in with the price. And I thought I didn't like cats.
Sorry, I rambled on a lot more than intended!
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Comments
I've really liked the Furches I've tried. Bit annoying the prices have gone up a fair bit recently, though.
Nice, enjoyable read mate.
Didn't know about Guitar Gallery. Thanks for that.
Glad you got sorted
Thanks, I always take pleasure in my instrument!
Coincidentally I've also got a Larrivee OM-3!
I play pretty much exclusively fingerstyle, ragtime blues, folk, a bit of Tommy Emmanuel (badly!). What's about you?
As it happens, the Larrivee is going to be the one that has to make room for the Furch. I'm not really getting the depth of tone I was hoping for. But for playability it's the best guitar I've had.
I mostly play fingerstyle too, mostly traditional folk, I suppose influenced by people like Nic Jones and Martin Carthy.
I've never really compared my Larrivee with anything vaguely similar. It's incredibly playable and records well. I guess I wouldn't expect it to have as much bass as a dreadnought, but it seems to have a pretty balanced sound to me.
Do you have the mahogany version? Mine is the rosewood. It is very balanced but I was looking for something with a little more bottom end oomph (as far as that's possible in an OM) hence the Furch
Anyway, apologies for hijacking the thread. Happy new guitar and do PM me if you fancy meeting up to talk/play guitars etc...
No problem, nice to know of someone local here. Heading off on holiday tomorrow but that would be good sometime.
It doesn't get much said about it on here but has a few bits and bobs hard to find elsewhere