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Old 01-16-2018, 12:03 PM
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Methos1979 Methos1979 is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Seacoast, NH
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Default CF meet & greet - X20 Artisan vs. X20 Custom plus a little Luck(y13)

Awhile back before receiving my X20 Custom Woody, Dave (aka frettingflyer) reached out to me on PM. Turns out he's relatively local to me and is an X20 Artisan owner. He was interested in my thoughts on my X20 Custom when it came in as he was considering a custom order of his own for the shorter scale. So of course it made sense to get together so we could meet in person, put faces to names/handles and even more importantly, compare and contrast our X20's. This was very helpful for me because all my comparisons in my review of my X20 Custom to the X20 Artisan I'd owned were clouded with the fog of the nearly 3 year gap since I owned it!

Dave stopped by today and brought along his X20 Artisan. He also brought his Lucky 13 as it's one of the few CF guitars I had yet to try. I'll get that one out of the way quickly by just saying it's a sweet little guitar. Small and light, with decent tone. I was not a fan of the neck shape (no surprise there) but other than that it was a great little guitar.

Now, onto the real deal - the X20 shootout. To summarize, Dave's X20 Artisan is completely stock and only differed from the Artisan I had in the onboard electronics (my was B-Band, his is LR Baggs Anthem) and the color, blue vs. green. For the record I liked his green better than the blue and I liked the LR Baggs Anthem better than the B-Band I had and better than the LR Baggs Element VTC I had in the X7 Custom I owned briefly last Fall. The main differences between his stock Artisan and my Custom Woody (other than cosmetics, of course) are the shorter scale (25.5" vs. 24.6"), neck carve (flat D vs. soft V) and pickups (Anthem vs. K&K). There's also a weight difference, albeit very minor. I'll cover each of these from my perspective and Dave can chime when he visits.

Weight: When I first got my X20 Custom the first thing I noticed was how heavy it felt. This needs to be tempered with the fact that my other guitar (as well as the last few I've owned) is an extremely lightly built all-wood guitar. Also, I don't remember (again, that fog of time) the X20 Artisan I had as being an overly light guitar, but the Custom seemed a little heavy. When compared to the Martin my X20 is somewhere around a pound heavier. Although we didn't weigh the two X20's, mine definitely did feel a little heavier but not much. Maybe a half pound, probably less. So this pretty much confirms my recollection, the Custom X20 is slightly heavier than my Artisan.

Scale: This was a big thing for both of us. Dave is considering a shorter scale for more comfort mostly. He said his fingers tire after playing for a few hours and thought the shorter scale and less string tension would be helpful. For me my concern was if I was losing volume with the shorter scale as my recollection of the Artisan was that it was louder. We both seemed to agree that the shorter scale of my Custom did not translate to any loss in volume, at least not enough to be noticeable. Dave did notice an like the reduced string tension. I noticed it was well and also greatly appreciated the comfort of the reduced reach of the shorter scale.

Neck Carve: This one was mostly me as Dave didn't seem concerned with neck carve, at least not that I remember him saying. I, on the other hand, did instantly remember the feel of the stock X20 neck as something I was not terribly fond of. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it and greatly preferred the Custom's soft V which I ordered. No surprises there.

Pickups: Both sounded very good through my K&K pre-amp and into the Carvin AG200. Obviously I'm a K&K fan anyway so again no surprise there. Dave also seemed to like the tone of the K&K amplified and said he really likes the idea of not having a battery to deal with so it might be something he would consider. As for the LR Baggs Anthem, I was pleasantly surprised with it's tone. I really did not like the B-Band on the Artisan I had, nor did I like much the LR Baggs Element VTC on the X7. But the Anthem sounded great and if I felt the need for some onboard tone and volume controls I would definitely consider it on future guitars, so that was good to know.

Out-front tone, Martin vs. X20 Custom: Last up was just the joy of actually being able to stand out front of my guitars and hear them played by someone else. Dave is a predominantly fingerstyle player like me (although he's a little better!) so it was very nice to listen to him play my guitars from a vantage point I never get to hear. He played both my Martin 000-18GE Custom and the X20 Custom which I very much appreciated as it allowed me to finally be able to compare and contrast tones and volumes from the listener standpoint. The volume of the Martin was just ever so slightly louder than the X20 out front and it sounded incredible, pure Martin magic. The X20 also sounded very good with a very even tone across the strings and great sustain, pure Emerald carbon fiber goodness.

Of course the best thing was getting to meet Dave in person. He wants to start playing open mics and he's definitely ready so we hope we'll see each other from time to time although we do have somewhat opposite work schedules. Thanks for stopping by, Dave, and helping me answer some questions I had. Hopefully others will find this information useful as well!
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