[Joe Beamish]

I got a Santa Cruz OM almost a year ago. Marvelous sound. I bought it in spite of the 1 3/4” nut width. Like you, I preferred the old 1 11/16” width of all my other previous guitars, acoustic and electric. And that’s the width that virtually every one of my favorite players, almost all finger style guys, some of them endowed with monster hands and fat fingers, played — extremely well. They didn’t seem to require the wider necks that the market has turned to, for whatever reason, for midsize guitars. Like some of those guys, I often fret two strings with one finger, as in the open E and open A chords, so I can use other fingers to fret elsewhere. The wider neck made this more difficult for awhile.

But I love every other aspect of my axe. I’m used to the neck now — it took ages, even though I play nearly every day. It doesn’t hurt my hand or anything. Doesn’t cause any soreness or discomfort. Doesn’t keep me from being able to play anything that I could play before.

Whenever I visit the guitar shop, I do indeed notice how nicely the old 1 11/16” necks feel, pretty much in all shapes. Why did the market have to fiddle with a good thing? But I never see another guitar remotely in the same price range or less that makes me want to trade off my OM. In short, it sounds too good.

So I’m stuck with the neck, and I’ve embraced it with gratitude. It just took me awhile.