Is there really a difference between acoustic guitars? Listen!
 

Well, of course there is! I thought I would try out my usual 2-mic method (Rode NT1 at 12th fret, angled toward soundhole. MXL LDC at lower bout) with different guitars to hear the difference in them that isn't always as noticeable when playing.

See if you can figure out which is which! I play 3 things on each guitar, only the first's 2nd thing is a little different than the others.

Guitars used (not in this order), all with Martin Lifespan strings - but some have older, some newer strings, and all have different gauges):
2020 Taylor 324ce Builders Edition mahogany top/urban ash body grand auditorium cutaway
2012 Taylor 310ce spruce top/sapele body dreadnaught cutaway
2011 Fender CD140sce spruce top/laminated rosewood dreadnaught cutaway
1973 (?) Epiphone 6830 spruce top/laminated rosewood dreadnaught

Hey Mike, you know your recording is mono? With spaced pairs, you're going to get quite a bit of phase cancellation that way, so the recording isn't going to really capture the sound as well as if you were in stereo. If you want mono, I'd consider using a single mic.

Yes, I left the mics panned center just for tonal comparison, if I'd panned them apart, it would have been much easier to tell the guitars apart! I don't pan them together when I am mixing a song.
I don't think there is much of a phase issue with both mics the same distance from the guitar - I just compared the recording switching between panned/mono and only the 'space' changed.

Ah, ok. That was kind of my thought tho, if I heard them in stereo I might be able to tell them apart. Listening with one ear :-), they kind of sound the same.

Try the other ear! ;) I can distinctly hear differences in each, specially when switching between the same passage on each guitar. Of course, Soundcloud's compression feature does rob some sound.

They definitely sound different. I don't know the guitars well enough to say which is which, but it's obvious that there are different guitars being played.

Epi (10s)
Fender (11s)
324 (12s)
310 (13s)

It was a happy day when my recordings got clean and clear enough that I could later on tell which of my guitars I had played when listening back to them.

A good guitar player makes all guitars sound good

Equally good? They all sound the same?

Agreed. How you record may make different things sound the same, the same thing sound different, or with a high degree of 'realism' with the right gear / methods / space.

I definitely could tell some differences, but they all sound good.

I felt the last one was the “warmest” but maybe a little less articulation. It did have the thickest strings though.

I venture that a well crafted and adjusted guitar will sound good, the difference between such guitars nuance and preference more than better or worse.

I suppose within a group of guitars with similar broad tonality, the playability match to a guitarist is the most important thing.

Rick....obviously not...but if I was listening to an isolated recording with any one of them ....and not doing a sidebyside, it would sound good. It's like video....when the content is important, it makes little difference if it's 4k, 1080p, or even mini dv. I'm a acoustic guitar lover. I like the content. The particular sound source is irrelevant. Give me a good guitarist on a yamaha fg over a average guitarist playing a d28...always. And we're not even into the sphere of re-guitar and IR's yet. I was obviously interested how the fender compared and happy with the results. Thanks /k

Yes, obviously not. Yet when conversations about the sound of different guitars begin invariably there is a comment about so and so can make any guitar sound good (like the guitar played does not even matter). Maybe it's just in part that the listener likes that style of music or that particular piece, or the sonority of the tuning the guitar is in. It's really a different topic than the guitar's own goods.

But we are not talking about the “any” guitar here. These are all fine guitars. None on them sound bad. Just different, a little.

I would not look at this list of guitars and say they only sound good because of the player. They sound good, and the player sounds good.
I could make them sound bad, but that isn’t the guitars fault, and I have heard good players make a $10 Hello Kitty plastic ukulele sound pretty awesome.