Hello everybody,
first of all thanks a lot for your posts sharing your experiences and thoughts about Furch guitars and Huml Music in Prague. This helped me in making my choice and finally I did buy an amazing OM-35SR last last weekend.
For future potential buyers and for whom could be interested I will share my experience hoping it could be helpful for someone.
Why Furch?
I was after a Martin OM style (OM-28, EC or JM mainly) for quite a while, reading reviews, watching tons of YouTube Videos and reading post in Forums like this bus the price Point was an issue for me. Someone did a comparisson between the Martin and the Furch and this is how a got to know them. After watching "all" the YouTube Videos with Furch guitars and checking their prices I had to try one. After doing so I was convinced, I wanna have one of these and at the half of the price of a Martin and even better finishing and build construction the decision was kind of easy.
Why to buy in Czech Republic?
I live in Germany so after calling HUML Music and checking their prices I thought, perfect! Weekend in Prague, tasty beer and food + amazing guitar for the same price as buying in Germany
Price and Transportation
The OM-35SR I bought did cost me 1700 Euros + 200 for the LR Baggs Anthem System. Total cost 1900 while right now in Euro-Countries that would cost 2100 (cheapest Internet price I found) + 400 for the LR.Baggs Anthem. If you go to any Music store here in Germany and want to try the guitar before buying you have to pay around 2300-2500 for the guitar + 400 euros LR.Baggs Anthem. So saving between 500 and 700 Euros I would say.
The Transportations Issue: I called Czech Airlines and they offered two Options.
a) Pay 200 Euros for cheking in a musical Instrument (Sport Equipment is free or at least cheap) but for musical instruments you have to pay that nice amount.
b) Paying an extra seat in the plane. Nice...
c) So I did C. Went there with the plane and came home on the Bus with no extra charge for my guitar
Sound - Comparing to OM-34SR, OM-35AG(Adirondack/Madagascar)
I bounced from one model to the other again and again and the winner (for me) was allways the OM-35SR. It had the reachest, warmest tone, with a lot of stuff going on with overtones.
The OM-35AG was definitelly the most beautiful looking but the tone was brighter and somehow "quackier". I guess that the Madagascar back is stiffer than the East Indian one...
The OM-34SR was nice too but again, not that reach and wars as the 35.
Soloing
I play basically Jazz, Bossa and Blues so having a loud "soloing" instrument is very important for me. Most of the acoustic guitars are kind of weak when soiling on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd string. But this guitar is just a machine gun with a lot of volume, sustain and overtones. It is like playing with the a reverb pedal.
Strumming
When strumming this guitar is not any worse. It has that woody tone and when strummed a bit harder it breaks like a good flamenco guitar, just fantastic. I have to say that for some guitar players this guitar needs some time to get used to. After a week now playing every day I realised that I have a tendency to use "palm mute" on many ocassions because it gets pretty loud really fast. Not when playing open strings with traditional chords on the first 3 frets but when playing more jazzy, bluessy and funky chords. Really fun to play with though...
Build Quality
This guitar looks just insanelly expensive. Perfect details in bindings, fretboard, etc..never played a nicer acoustic guitar. It looks like a 5000 Euro guitar!! Just way over the 2000 it did cost...just gergeous, really!!
Playability
The guitar came with Elixir strings - caliber 012-something - pretty thik strings. The guitar was pretty playable but it had definitelly some room for improvement. I asked If itīs possible to bring the strings a bit closer to the fretboard by sanding the saddle. The guy at HUML guitars offered to do it himself so 5 minutes later the guitar became more comfortable closer to how I use to play. I thought that at home I would sand it a bit more but after a week with it I think I like it how it is. I have to say here that in the last year I have been just playing electric so that is why an acoustic guitar felt a bit chunky in my hands.
Neck
I have been reading here that the neck of the Vintage series is a kind of a V-Shape neck and that for some players it is chunky. Well, the Millenium Series seemed to me a bit more comfortable but the vintage series is comfortable too. My OM-35SR has no evident signs of a V-Shape bt the OM-35AG had definitelly a V at the first 3 frets that was faded out around the 4th one.
It seems that it depends on each guitar so jaust have this in mind if you gonna buy blind.
HUML Music
They have a quite outstanding collection of Furch Guitars there, something between 20 and 30 for sure and having in mind the production delay and how they are sold out everywhere right now, that is a really good service....acztually for me a "must". In Germany you have to buy basically blind because you have no choice to compare...how will you know if the guitar you picked is the right one for you if you have no choice to compare?
The guys there spoke some english and if speeking not that fast you can comunicate with them. They are friendly and let you play any guitar the time you want.
The Installation of the LR Baggs System is done in a couple of hours and some little adjustments like sanding down the saddle is a thing of 5 Minutes.
Sorry for that long Post but I thought it may interest to someone...
Thanks for your posts and if someone has any question I will try to answer if I am around