Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in TC
So I was talking up carbon at a local guitar shop, hoping to talk them into handling one brand or another. The guy there admitted that the couple he had seen pass through their used section sounded really great, "but don't forget, they are never going to get any better." Got me thinking - We who have been bit hard by the carbon bug must fall into one or more of these camps:
1. Don't really believe that wood guitars get better with age (I believe that most or at least many do). OR
2. Don't have the ear to tell when they have gotten better with age (I may be at least a bit in this camp ...) OR
3. Don't care because the carbon guitar -
a. environmental stability trumps everything else (here I am)
b. sounds great already so who cares?
c. just like the looks (or the cool space agey material)
Did I miss anybody here? Where do you come to carbon from?
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I'll just add a note for someone who isn't interested in CF guitars.
Firstly I'll admit that they are THE answer for musicians playing in places where temperatures and humidity are big issues. I live in the UK and neither are significant.
I'll agree that "good" guitars mprove with age - further , they improve to sound better for one's individual style after time - i.e. playing encourages the woos to resonate as they dry out and a resonance pattern appears based on your style. I'll also respectfully disagree with the person who buys solely on the basis of how they sound new. This is a reasonable starting point but it is not the whole story. Example : There are times when I have ordered a guitar from the US sight unseen because the model is simply unavailable in the UK.
The latest example is my Santa Cruz which was built in 2012 hung on a wall in a dealers until 2014 when someone bought it and didn't play it. I bought it from him some months later and it was disappointing tonally. I have played it a lot at home to open it up and it now responds to me beautifully.
Equally, it replaced a Larrivee SD50 dreadnought which I never played much, and sold to a friend who is a hard strummer. I less than a year he has opened up the guitar so it now fills a concert room ...so much so that I have wondered about buying it back.
Anther factor that i believe holds back CF guitars is tat they are by intention and design very modern looking and I can't be the only one who prefer their guitars to be or look like traditional (well 20th C) Martin and Gibson designs.