donh wrote:
"What I want most out of a custom guitar is a large lovely sweet spot. Ideally one that suits my style, but since whatever it is I do is a changeable thing that is patently unreasonable. A big sweet spot means I can find a happy place to play that instrument pretty darn easily. Fortunately I can find joy in a large range of tones, so it's really not all that difficult to get me all happy about an instrument - just don't build me a one-trick pony."
That's something that does not occur to a lot of steel string players, but it's the sine qua non for classical guitarists. It's harder to build what I call a 'big center' into a steel string, but possible. Also, this presupposes that the player has the chops to use the wider tonal palette, and wants to. Some styles are built around a particular sound, while others, such as fingerstyle, tend to use the wider palette.
I have to agree with the folks who have mentioned that each builder tends to have 'their' sound. Some can vary it more than others, or build a guitar that gives a bigger center, which is better, just so the center encompasses the tone you're looking for, and you can get it. I really prefer it if a potential customer can play one of mine first, even it it's not exactly what they want. It's awfully easy, when discussing tone, to use the same words in vastly different ways, and a builder can end up making something that precisely matches his idea of the desired toner, only to find that it's not what the customer had in mind. This is a drag all around. Many builders do have a generous return policy for just this reason. From the makers standpoint, an unhappy customer is just bad advertising, so it's often better simply to take the thing back, and find somebody who will like it.
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