Handcrafted vs assembled?

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

To my mind, the most important asect of build quality is the selecting of the top , the thicknessing and the bracing of the top.
Everything else is secondary and parts can be CNC shaped and assembled to what amounts to box building.

You can have the world's best motor/engine, but if the guys that welded the hull together didn't do a good job, the ship is still gonna sink. Such is the case with modern guitar manufacture.

"Quality" of sound is a moving target, highly subjective and one person's "great" sounding is another's "dud". Whether the "engine" is good or not is highly subjective. One the other hand, if one reads the posts on this forum, what often "sinks" a guitar - causes it to be rejected for "poor quality" - are the small things, like binding gaps, finish imperfections, "undesirable" aesthetic choice of grain in the top, grey streaks in an ebony fingerboard, using non-wood for bridge or fingerboard, binding falling off, poor setup, poor intonation, and similar. So, even if the top, its thicknessing and its bracing are "great", it still might "sink".

Whilst I'm a great fan of what Martin have achieved over the years, I believe that they are largely "assembled" and their latest Marketing campaign "still Handmade" etc., is downright misleading and does nothing to further their fine reputation.

Looking at the recent NYT piece, for example, in the photos, only rarely is a person seen actually involved in the testing or manufacture. I have no objection whatsoever to their using whatever technology they wish, but to call it "still handmade" is disingenuous and takes us for idiots.