NGD: I'm done!
Yep, famous last words, but I'm done buying guitars. I narrowed down my electrics to a Fender Tele and a Gibson ES-335 and now I narrowed down my acoustic.
Guitar Center had a massive sale going on, so I looked online and found about 45 minutes away from me there was a Guild F47R pretty heavily discounted used. I've been digging orchestra and grand auditorium style bodies more than dreadnaughts, so I decided to head on down and check it out.
Long story short, it sounded pretty dead, but there was another store that I was interested in that carried some high end acoustic brands: Larrivee, Martin, Breedlove, Gibson to name a few. I played every acoustic I could out of the two stores, everything from $150 starters to a $2700 local luthier made piece. I played some serious acoustic that I've lusted over the past few years like the Gibson J-45 and Blues King, (3) different Larrivee OM-03s, Martin D-28 and D-18s. There was a pretty crazy Breedlove Voice acoustic there, but it just didn't project the way I was looking for.
What did I end up with? I got a freakishly good Martin OOO-15M. When people think of killer acoustics, an all-mahogany acoustic is not usually what they think of... at least not me anyhow. I finally did what I always preach about on here which is not go by the price or the specs, just use your ears. I'll be damned if this piece didn't beat them all for my playing and my taste. It literally spanked everything I played today. Nothing could match the punch, the articulation and the underlying warmth of this piece. There's something with this top that just responds very well to pick attack... so many guitars got more compressed when I'd dig in and this guitar just seemed to welcome heavy picking.
The D-18/D-28 acoustics were woofy on the lowend and lacked midrange articulation, out of 3 Larrivee OM-03s, only 1 came close to being picked and while that one had better low mids than most, it still lacked the punch and depth and the Gibsons while smooth and rich in the mids, still lacked the punch that I was looking for. Everything I tried today I kept A/Bing with the 000-15M and the 000-15M would win. I kept trying to talk myself out of buying it thinking I was settling with a more budget USA Martin, but I just loved playing it and when push came to shove, I decided this is the one I've been waiting for. Have I put it up against an M-36 or an 0000-18GE? No, but it sounds so good that I'm not going to complain.
Only thing it needs is a strap button by the neck and some aftermarket electronics, but I'm realistically going to be using this guitar for just songwriting and recording at this time anyhow. Had to share the last significant piece of my musical journeyI've got no excuse for not recording an album or at least an EP now.
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Originally Posted by kevlar3000
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