Strumming Shootout: Reimagined Martin D-41 vs. V-braced Taylor 714ce
 

I am certainly no shootout star like my gifted friend Gary Roberts and others here on AGF. But I’ve had a lot of fun the last month or so sitting here for a couple hours every morning swapping back-and-forth between these two beautiful guitars. So I thought I’d at least share a quick-and-dirty strumming comparison. You might want to use headphones to listen to the vid. No, it won’t make my playing sound any better (I’m just a hack who started playing when he retired a few years ago) but at least headphones might give you a better sense of what the guitars truly sound like. :D

Martin sounds all around more full....bass, lows obvious. What a couple of nice guitars to have around.....thanks for taking the time to share.

Both are great. But are the srings the same?

It’s hard to tell how either one really sound, but the Martin is as one would expect, louder, rounder, more bass, etc..

The reason they’re hard to judge for me is your strumming style. I’m not talking about your skill level, but your strumming technique. Like a lot of strummers, and I’m a strummer, you’re brushing the string with the pick and not getting a lot of guitar. Rather, you’re getting a lot of pick and string noise. I can’t tell what a guitar holds when it’s not being pushed.

I dig in to the individual strings (with my pick) much like a fingerstylist, accenting the notes of the chord rather than all of them in one stroke, every time.

I hope you don’t mind the tip, it isn’t meant as anything other than something to help you get more from your instruments.

Nope. I’m not trying to make an exact comparison, except to do the same strumming style on both. The Martin has their new Authentic Acoustic Lifespan 2.0 PB lights. The Taylor has Elixir PB Nanoweb lights.

Martin=Warm .... Taylor=Cold

I think comparing both guitars "in their element" is best here, as you've done. More like catching each animal in their own habitat rather that witnessing them side by side in a zoo.

I love the thump the Martin gives, but you definitely have two nice guitars. I played a 714ce V Class last week and it sounded nice. The Lutz top on the 714ce sounded much, much better than a couple of Lutz topped guitars I played last year.

Try to remember that these are different classes of guitar - a dread and a grand auditorium. A dread, and especially a Martin dread, is a strumming and flat-picking instrument. A GA is designed with a tight waist and sound hole size that supports the mids more and lighter bracing that creates a crossover instrument that allows both fingerstyle and lighter strumming. Wait until the new Taylor dreads come out in a few days and let's see how they compare.

Bob

It is quite a stark difference between the two. If you listen to the Martin first and then to the Taylor, the Taylor sounds small and not as rich. But if you listen to the Taylor on it's own a couple times and then listen to the Martin, the Martin sounds too deep and muddy! Amazing that just based the order you listen to things, your ears adjust and can throw you way off.

Sorry Bob, but this requires far too much common sense and genuine objectivity. Too many folks are far more content to denigrate a brand or praise their team; it's so much easier, after all. I personally appreciate you trying to infuse balance and intelligence, however! :D

Edward

Yep, exactly, guys. This isn’t meant to be an apple-to-apple comparison...just a quick-and-dirty acoustic take on the difference between these two nice guitars.

And, of course, the reason I have them is because they are so different. Different makers (Martin, Taylor), different woods (Sitka, Lutz), different shapes (dread, GA), different bracing (forward shifted, scalloped X, V-class), different strings (Martin Lifespan, Elixir)...all of which covers a broad tonal palette. Which is all I ask of my tiny herd. :D

I must have missed the lack of "common sense" and "genuine objectivity".

Was it Martin: warm - Taylor: cold comment? What was said that denigrated a brand? I just get his opinion from that.

In fact, I didn't notice the OP injecting "balance and intelligence", he just made a nice clip of two guitars.

I think what you're trying to point out can and does happen, but I didn't see it here. I think there needs to be less being offended.

Strumming Shootout: Reimagined Martin D-41 vs. V-braced Taylor 714ce
 

To really make this apples to apples, you'll have to buy the rumored Taylor dreadnought coming out later this month <grin>

https://www.taylorguitars.com

Thank you for taking the time and effort to do this and sharing it with us, I enjoyed it. What's fun and revealing is clicking back and forth between the 45 sec mark, Martin and 2:05 Taylor clip. Do it a bunch of times to really hear the difference.

Yes the Martin had a big sound with more bass.......its a dreadnaught. The Taylor sounded wonderful, you have two great guitars, different from each other. Kinda the point when owning more than one.