I am reticent to tell anyone what to buy. I can only relate my experience. I started playing acoustic guitar about a year ago. I also wanted a Martin and purchased a GPRS1 from GC on sale for a little over $619. The idea of dropping $2500-$3K on a new standard series seemed impractical based on my limited skills. It was a good guitar, but limited and not great. It also was built like a tank and is very heavy. I happened to stop at a boutique shop in IL and they had a 000-18 right next to the RS1. I noticed the -18 weighed about 1/2 of the RS and the tone and playability were light years ahead of the RS. I sold the RS and went in search of its replacement. I lost about $150 when I resold it - about 25% of what I paid for it. I have bought and sold about 6-7 guitars over the last year and the RS is the only one in which I lost a good percentage of my initial cost. The remainder were all purchased used. About 2 months ago I stumbled upon a used 2016 000-18 on Reverb. I bought it. It is light weight, responsive, great neck feel and I recently had it professionally set up with Martin Retros. It is just an amazing little guitar that will have to be pried from cold dead hands. The moral for me was to not buy the headstock, but look for the "one". I found mine. Now on to find the next "one".
