Mahogany top: how about volume and headroom compared to to Sitka?

[Fresh1985]

I have the guitar you have, a furch OM32 and recently tried an all hog 00 martin. To my own personal tastes I just couldnt get along with the all hog tone and when I came home to my furch, I realized just what a great sounding guitar it is. I guess I just need that spruce punch and volume for my own style of play. All I can suggest is that you try an all hog martin and see if you like the tonal difference.

[Paddy1951]

Originally Posted by Johan Madsen

Let's say that though I do play fingerstyle, I also like to strum and play agressively, I like a guitar to sound clear and focused even when I really dig in in a hard way, without sounding overly boxy, or messy

I am not sure what your asking here. A 00-15 is not the best choice for fingerstyle, IMO. (Though I don't do much fingerstyle so maybe I am not the best judge.)
The 00-15 is a bigger guitar than you would expect, sound-wise. But it is a small guitar. I think it will do nicely for many situations. Is it going to be a great fingerstyle and be a spectacular dig in hard guitar with crystal clarity? No. Not IMO, anyway. There are things you can do to the guitar to improve it. Bone saddle, bone nut, ebony pins, Pearse armrest. Aluminum bronze strings.

My take on 15 series is you get a lot of guitar for your money. You get a classic kind of sound (rooted in depression era 17 series guitars.) But like most guitars, the 15 series guitars cannot do everything, the best. I don't any guitar can.

[ridethewind]

Originally Posted by gr81dorn

I have about 30 guitars and have had hundreds. The only guitar I've ever been loyal to is my 2008 Martin 000-15 because it literally sounds better and can do more than any guitar I've owned.

I believe that the 15 series doesn't look anything like the one I have anymore (different woods, bridge pins, tuners, neck joint, etc), so I can't speak to the newer ones. I still beleive they are the best buy in the business, though.

Maybe others share my experience and it's not a fluke, but mine is exceptionally full, rich and loud and is the reason I don't play big guitars anymore....I don't have to.

I share your experience. My 000-15M is a 2013 and from what I saw of a photo of a 2008 version, the woods look exactly the same. If I had to grab one guitar and leave, that Martin is the one I'd take. Warm, robust, responsive, versatile and plenty loud for my purposes.

[sdelsolray]

All mahogany guitars, particularly well made mid sized ones (e.g., 00 through OM sizes), generate certain sonics and have some behaviors that spruce or cedar topped guitars just don't have. Put simply, they are different.

Many folks are drawn to all mahogany guitars. Many are not.

For my uses, I like all mahogany guitars quite a bit.

[Jaden]

At extreme low volume bare finger picking my 000-18 provides fatter, softer tone (probably due to soft wood spruce top) and also has larger volume ceiling and headroom than my new 000-15M*. The 18 has more complex tonality; the 15 tighter, more pure tonal palette.

*still has phosphor bronze strings from the factory. Will switch to uncoated 80/20 lights/ EJ11 asap to hear this instrument clearly.

[tadol]

The Santa Cruz ‘29 series exhibit all the best characteristics of one of the better all mahogany Martins of 40+ years ago. But even the SC get better with playing in. But I’ve never played a mahogany topped guitar that had the volume and depth of a great spruce topped guitar. The unique tone and character of all mahogany ( or all koa, or even some all walnut ) either grabs you and you have to have one, or it doesn’t. I like ‘em -

[Cool555]

Originally Posted by Jaden

At extreme low volume bare finger picking my 000-18 provides fatter, softer tone (probably due to soft wood spruce top) and also has larger volume ceiling and headroom than my new 000-15M*. The 18 has more complex tonality; the 15 tighter, more pure tonal palette.

*still has phosphor bronze strings from the factory. Will switch to uncoated 80/20 lights/ EJ11 asap to hear this instrument clearly.

Congrats on your new 00015M!

Let us know your preference once you have had enough time playing both...


My guess is that you will love both for different reasons...

[ridethewind]

Originally Posted by Jaden

At extreme low volume bare finger picking my 000-18 provides fatter, softer tone (probably due to soft wood spruce top) and also has larger volume ceiling and headroom than my new 000-15M*. The 18 has more complex tonality; the 15 tighter, more pure tonal palette.

*still has phosphor bronze strings from the factory. Will switch to uncoated 80/20 lights/ EJ11 asap to hear this instrument clearly.

I'll be interested in your experience once you make that string switch. I use round-core PBs on my 000-15M (custom light) and I've found the sensitivity for bare finger picking to be excellent, with more volume than I'd have thought.

[IH8FRETBUZZ]

Originally Posted by gr81dorn

I have about 30 guitars and have had hundreds. The only guitar I've ever been loyal to is my 2008 Martin 000-15 because it literally sounds better and can do more than any guitar I've owned.

It's plenty loud, full low end, rich highs, dreamy mids. It fits in fine in a jamb with guys playing big dreads with heavy strings and heavy picks. I play with my bare fingers and fingernail most of the time using light strings. It's a monster.

That being said, while I think they are the best overall value in guitars, I think I got a really, really, really good one. It just outperforms everything I've put up against it, even much bigger guitars.

I believe that the 15 series doesn't look anything like the one I have anymore (different woods, bridge pins, tuners, neck joint, etc), so I can't speak to the newer ones. I still beleive they are the best buy in the business, though.

I have played some D15s that blew the doors off the D28s in the jamb and the Collings, Bourgeois, etc equivalents.

Maybe others share my experience and it's not a fluke, but mine is exceptionally full, rich and loud and is the reason I don't play big guitars anymore....I don't have to.

I agree. My 000-15m is my go to guitar. Sounds amazing, and plays like butter.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Cool555

Congrats on your new 00015M!

Let us know your preference once you have had enough time playing both...


My guess is that you will love both for different reasons...

Thanks very much. Lots of love for the 000-15 here; I’ll let you know my impression after string change to 80/20 then later another string change to Martin retro monels and as per request from ridethewind/ thanks for expressing interest.

[gmel555]

I love the tone on my 000-15SM. It's a 12-fret (short-scale) so it has the extra body length which no doubt affects tone and volume of which there is plenty. If 14 frets are not an issue you might want to at least play a 12 fretter for comparison.

[Guildman]

[QUOTE=Nctom;5917372]...........and a Martin 000-18, which will be returned and replaced with a 00-18.

This hits me with fact that everyone has their preference whether it is sound or how it feels. When I bought the 000-18e retro the store also had the 00-18. I'm a bigger guy with a long reach which doesn't factor that much with these two guitars but the difference in sound was too obvious to pass on the 000 vs the 00. I'd like to hear your take on why u are switching out.

[M19]

Originally Posted by TBman

My all hog Guild rings out well (finger style) but my Avalon (spruce/rosewood) is on another level.

Ditto my Taylor Mahogany GC and McIlroyA30c. Someone earlier used the term "sweet" for his mahogany guitar, and I would agree with that on my Taylor.

[Johan Madsen]

Originally Posted by gr81dorn

Curious - 00-15 because of the short scale and the slightly smaller size? I was right on the fence years ago and elected to do the 000-15 because they feel almost the same as far as the size of the box goes when it's being played, but the longer scale of the 000 was noticeably easier for me to play and made it seem bigger and louder, likely due to the slightly bigger bouts, too. Just curious if volume and headroom are a concern why you'd elect from the smaller of the small bodies? The 00 is great either way.

I like those small sizes for fingerstyle, still I would like it to handle strumming in a nice way

[Johan Madsen]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

As a general rule of thumb, mahogany tops have headroom galore - it's difficult to overdrive a hardwood top, simply because it's denser, harder and heavier than a softwood top like spruce or cedar.

By the same token, mahogany tops tend to be quieter and perhaps not as projective as spruce tops. They also can have better tonal balance than spruce tops on a dreadnought - many spruce-topped dreadnoughts are overly bassy, but the same guitar with a mahogany top generally won't be, and as a result will work better on a microphone without crippling feedback.

But that same guitar, which mics and records like a dream, will probably struggle to be heard when there are a bunch of other guitars, banjos, mandolins and God knows what else playing at the same time. Nine out of ten mahogany-topped guitars will be quieter and less projective than the same backs and sides topped with spruce would be.

For those of you in the process of curling your lip to sneer at that last statement, because your own mahogany-topped guitar is loud enough to knock a school bus onto its side and cause the Mississippi River to change its course, please understand that I recognize that exceptions to the general rule exist: yes, there are SOME loud and projective mahogany-topped guitars.

But they're the exception, not the rule.

While I have owned a few mahogany- and sapele-topped guitars, I've never gigged much with those guitars because they don't have as wide a range of tonal colors as spruce tops can provide. I'm not the world's most brilliant improviser of dazzling lead lines, so in performance I vary the dynamics and tone colors a lot. It's just another way to be musically expressive.

But none of the mahogany-topped guitars I've owned have given me a wide enough selection of tone colors to work with, not for what I do, anyway.

So like anything else, there are some tonal gains and some tonal losses.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

glad to hear about the headroom, I can't find any video with anyone strumming those agressively, I'm pretty curious to hear how those would sound