Martin guitars vs. boutique builders

[HHP]

Small builders do not have to operate under the constraint of building something that has broad appeal. Some like Bourgeois needs to find 500 buyers a year, Martin needs to find 50,000 buyers.

Small builders can voice the guitars in alignment with their personal vision without worrying about appealing to thousands of players. My Bourgeois has a clarity and definition no production guitar has. My Lowden has a light, airy quality no big volume shop would risk producing.My Martins fill the space in between.

If you don't need it, want it, or can recognize it, no reason to look at small shop brands. But don't just assume its status seekers. What percentage of guitar players nationally have even heard of Bourgeois?

[Floridapicker]

I'll admit I'm new to the "high end guitar" market. Played cheap acoustics for years. Now when I play a cheapo (doesn't matter who made it) I'm really disappointed with the tone action etc. That being said I literally spent a whole year researching high end acoustics. Martin, Gibson, Collings...and many more. I played many made by Martin, Taylor, Guild, Gibson etc. But never had the chance to play a true custom guitar made by a small business luthier. I chose Martin HD-28V for the vintage appointments, tone woods, and factory consistency. The boutique makers were out of my price range. Taylor has a more modern sound to me but Martin to my ear is the "bees knees", Gibson's are very inconsistent nowadays. For me it was Martin vs. Gibson and to me that's an easy choice. I will say Gibson has built some astounding acoustics over the years but at the time the Martin ruled the roost.

-She sings with me(HD-28-V)
-FP

[archerscreek]

I love to look at guitars like Froggy Bottom when I’m “window shopping.” I never play them, though. I don’t want to chance scuffing up someone else’s future baby.

Truthfully, I doubt I could really dig in on something so expensive since an aggressive attack can lead to marks around the soundhole. I don’t mind those marks on my guitars. In fact I like seeing them naturally show up even though they relate to a potential trade-in value loss if I should ever trade them. But with the boutiques I doubt I could bring myself to risk scuffing it up with my pick.

One of the coolest guitars I’ve ever seen was SRV’s main Strat, not because it was custom or ornate but because it had that significant wear through the finish above the strings. You could tell his gift came through countless hours of playing his heart out and playing all out.

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by 808K

Based on your original post, and your response to RP’s post, it seems like your opinion regarding the subject matter was already settled. Maybe just looking for support of your opinion? The Boom! kind of gives it away.

It's a disingenuously posed question. Envy is ugly. I don't think there is any more point to this thread.

[Steve-arino]

Playing my Stephen Kinnaird OM-42 tonight, I thought about the difference(s) between this guitar and any other I've owned throughout the years.

When I play the Kinnaird I feel like I'm playing a piece of original art, like a Renoir or a Picasso; I feel the builders personality coming through the guitar. I feel the expertise. I feel the passion of the builder, the fine touch of the brush stroke. The subtlety of detail. The unique voicing. The originality.

I can't afford a Picasso or Renoir, and the Kinnaird is a stretch. But there it is.

steve_arino
Kinnaird OM-42
McPherson Carbon Touring
Waterloo WL12-mh

[dneal]

Originally Posted by RP

Come on folks. How many of you are too polite to say what you really think? I’m not. I think the difference for the vast majority of people comes down to bragging rights to ownership of a particular guitar with a boutique builder’s name on the headstock....

I didn't buy a Rein for the name. Any "bragging rights" comes from the sound. Martin couldn't build my guitar if they tried.

[Don Lampson]

One of the things that troubles me, is people forming negative opinions about Martin, when they start comparing a standard D-18, or 28, to some boutique guitars, costing two, or three times, the price of a standard model Martin...

I think Martin competes extremely favorably with any custom builder on a dollar per dollar basis... Martins also command a far stronger position on the used market if the owner decides to sell. I don't read about other posters, who are looking for a Collings, or Santa Cruz tone, in some other brand? It's always that "Martin sound" they are after... Martin really is, "America's guitar"....

Don

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by Don Lampson

One of the things that troubles me, is people forming negative opinions about Martin, when they start comparing a standard D-18, or 28, to some boutique guitars, costing two, or three times, the price of a standard model Martin...

I think Martin competes extremely favorably with any custom builder on a dollar per dollar basis... Martins also command a far stronger position on the used market if the owner decides to sell. I don't read about other posters, who are looking for a Collings, or Santa Cruz tone, in some other brand? It's always that "Martin sound" they are after... Martin really is, "America's guitar"....

Don

i think it's more Martin owners having negative attitudes towards boutique guitars... like the OP.

[Kitkatjoe]

Originally Posted by davistld01

Is there really a huge difference in quality of build and superior fit/finish between "boutique" guitars by guys like Huss & Dalton and Collings, and those made these days by Martin & Gibson?

I've got a late model Martin OM-21 that plays great, sounds amazing and I can't find anything wrong with it...but the equivalent in say, a Huss & Dalton (TOM-R) for instance is thousands more! What are you paying for?

Am I missing something?

I would think that all the above have very skilled people who put their very best into their work.

[ataylor]

Originally Posted by Don Lampson

One of the things that troubles me, is people forming negative opinions about Martin, when they start comparing a standard D-18, or 28, to some boutique guitars, costing two, or three times, the price of a standard model Martin...

I think Martin competes extremely favorably with any custom builder on a dollar per dollar basis...

I’ve played a lot of D-18ish guitars over the last 5-6 years. Without even factoring in price, my top three have been a Greven D-18 with baked top, a Collings D1A, and the humble standard D-18 from the folks in Nazareth. It’s crazy how good that guitar is.

Just slightly less crazy is the fact that I don’t own one... yet.

[GeneralDreedle]

I have a Gibson Southern Jumbo and a Martin HD 28 VTS, every time I go to Dusty Strings in Seattle I play the Collings and Goodalls they have and I keep coming back to my guitars, they have a basic classic sound that I love

[David MacNeill]

Originally Posted by buddyhu

Some people take great pleasure in devaluing the things that others enjoy...Wouldn't it be better for everyone if we could simply rejoice when someone discovers something that makes them happy?

Well said, brother.

I like Martins and Collings. I’ve owned most of the other usual suspects (Gibson, Taylor, Larrivée, Lowden, Santa Cruz) but none had real staying power for me — except for a 2002 Goodall RGCC that I simply could not afford to keep at the time (the crash of 2008). I’ve never played its equal.

2002 GOODALL RGCC 1.jpg

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by stringjunky2

i think it's more Martin owners having negative attitudes towards boutique guitars... like the OP.

Stringjunky, I own a Martin guitar. So I guess that makes me a Martin owner. I also own some handbuilt luthier guitars. Oh my gosh! I guess that means I'm envious of myself!!

Don't assume that people who own a brand of guitars act alike or for the same motives. There's nothing monolithic about any of this. Over the years, as I've acquired nice-sounding musical instruments, I've gotten them because they sounded good and I managed to scrape the money up to buy them. The ones I've kept are all very good instruments.

There hasn't been anything planned about most of those acquisitions, at least not in some big overarching "master plan" sort of way. Last night I played a gig with my Gibson Advanced Jumbo; this evening I've been working on an arrangement on the Seagull Folk model I keep out on a stand beside my computer, a beat-up guitar I bought in a Vancouver, British Columbia pawnshop for $225 CDN because I wanted a guitar to play on the long ferry ride up to Alaska.

They all sound good, I use most of them on a regular basis, and envy or status insecurity played no role in my acquiring any of them.

So please rein in your impulse to project motives onto groups of people you've never met yet assume all act as one. In my case, you're most definitely wrong. But precisely since we're NOT some big monolithic group, I can't speak for any other Martin guitar owners.


Wade Hampton Miller

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Stringjunky, I own a Martin guitar. So I guess that makes me a Martin owner. I also own some handbuilt luthier guitars. Oh my gosh! I guess that means I'm envious of myself!!

Don't assume that people who own a brand of guitars act alike or for the same motives. There's nothing monolithic about any of this. Over the years, as I've acquired nice-sounding musical instruments, I've gotten them because they sounded good and I managed to scrape the money up to buy them. The ones I've kept are all very good instruments.

There hasn't been anything planned about most of those acquisitions, at least not in some big overarching "master plan" sort of way. Last night I played a gig with my Gibson Advanced Jumbo; this evening I've been working on an arrangement on the Seagull Folk model I keep out on a stand beside my computer, a beat-up guitar I bought in a Vancouver, British Columbia pawnshop for $225 CDN because I wanted a guitar to play on the long ferry ride up to Alaska.

They all sound good, I use most of them on a regular basis, and envy or status insecurity played no role in my acquiring any of them.

So please rein in your impulse to project motives onto groups of people you've never met yet assume all act as one. In my case, you're most definitely wrong. But precisely since we're NOT some big monolithic group, I can't speak for any other Martin guitar owners.


Wade Hampton Miller

I am in no way implying all Martin owners, just some. The real villain is the OP.

I'm done here.

[gitarro]

Martin is as good as it gets for factory guitars. It is purely a matter of taste when it comes to comparing one factory made martin against a factory made collings apart from the latter's famous fit and finish levels. Both will conform to the Bell curve and it is purely random if you get a great guitar or a merely good or even adequate one.

But if you are looking for a guitar that is built to sound to the best it can potentially sound, you have to look elsewhere to a luthier made guitar where they will voice that guitar individually.