[HANASHIR:2831] Re: guitar shopping

[Joel Siegel <siegeljd...>]

I tend to trust Consumer Reports most for "impersonal" buying
decisions.  For me, buying a guitar is a "personal" decision.

Some questions to ask yourself are still the basics: what's your budget
(you said you were upgrading -- by how much?)  what do local people
sell?  if they don't sell what you want, how far are you willing to go?

I'm a big advocate of buying from local small businesses rather than the
mega-stores.  And right now they really need our business.  They may not
be able to match exactly the mega-stores, but they can often come
close.  And you'd be surprised, often they can do better.  Case in point
in a minute.

Certainly, you should look for a solid top.  That's probably the only
no-brainer of the "how/what to buy" questions.

Guitars are *so* personal and such a matter of opinion.  Personally,
I've never met a Guild or Yamaha whose sound or feel I've really liked.
They both sound and feel (IMHO) big and heavy, and often dull.  But I
know others swear by them and love them to pieces (don't take that last
part too literally.)

In the past I've really liked Takamines.  I don't know how they are
now.  Sigmas (basically mass-produced Martins) I hear have been pretty
good.  If you can afford them, Taylors and Martins are of course
wonderful.

Whoever said play lots of them and buy the one you fall in love with was
mostly right.  You will have to play a lot of them and give your ear
some experience and training to really tell the difference in sound.
Of course you're also looking for how the guitar feels when you play
it.  Is it easy to play?  (usually referred to as action.)

Also consider a used guitar.  If they're in good shape and well taken
care of, they have "aged" and will *usually* sound better after 5+ years
than a brand new instrument.

Now for that case in point.
Before 1991 I only had a 12-string guitar.  When I decided to start
investigating a 6-string, I wandered down to the local Guitar Center to
look at what they had.  (It was half a block from my house, which
certainly made it convenient.)  I'd already decided that I wanted to
find a used guitar, for the reasons I have mentioned above, which I
learned when I had to replace a stolen 12-string guitar and could not
find a new one that I liked and could afford... then came across a 1971
Martin for $500 which I still have, and sounded better than anything
new).

I went into the "used" room, with mostly Martins on the wall.  They
sounded pretty nice, but finally I took down what I later found out was
a 1966 Martin D-28, one of the last to be made with Brazilian rosewood.
It saaaaaaaaaang.  Definitely the best-sounding thing in the room.  It
had obviously been played *hard* and was not all *that* well taken care
of, and had problems with action.  Despite all that, they were asking
$2400 for the thing, which I found out was about $600 more than they
should have been asking for a mint-to-good-condition D28.

The thing sat on their wall for well over a year (and that was just the
time *I* knew it was there.)  They never budged on the price, something
about taking it in trade for something really valuable and they wanted
to recoup.  Whatever (dumb business decision if you ask me.)  Finally
they took out a new Taylor 410, the least expensive Taylor made.  I
played it and was instantly in love, the only instrument that sounded
better to me -new- than the 25-year-old D-28.  I bought it that day,
just over $900 including case, and it's still about my favorite
instrument on the planet.

The only drag was later taking it to the local luthier who does my
repairs.  He also makes guitars, and sells a few new ones, including
Taylors.  Despite being a one-man shop, I found out he could have met or
beat Guitar Center's price, *and* he would have set it up into the
bargain (a very nice thing).  I would much rather have bought it from
him than from GC.  But who knew?  I just didn't think to call, and
assumed that if he had it he'd be charging retail.  (I think retail was
a couple hundred bucks more, maybe not quite that much.)

So the other case in point is to do lots of shopping and playing, and
give it time.  Trust your ears and give them time to acclimate if
they're not used to judging among guitars.  And don't overlook feel and
ease of play.  You want to be able to play the thing for hours on end
without pain or strain.

*PLUG ALERT* I do support buying from local small dealers, but if
anybody doesn't have one (or doesn't like who they have for whatever
reason) I'd be happy to put you in touch with my local guy.  One
additional thing he does is to take some budget model guitars (last time
I checked it was Mountain, a brand made in Korea) that are fairly clunky
out of the box, go in and shave the braces and set it up properly,
leaving you with an amazingly good-sounding but budget-priced guitar.
They're all solid tops.  His name is John Mello, in Kensington (near
Berkeley, near San Francisco), and his phone is 510-526-1080.

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