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  #91  
Old 07-05-2009, 08:50 PM
jeremy3220 jeremy3220 is offline
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Originally Posted by brian a. View Post
Sorry, I don't want to nitpick but Martin didn't make the 000-15 until 1998. The 000-16 started in 1989. They made one 000-17 in 1911 and 25 in 1952. So maybe you guys are thinking 000-18, 000-21 or 000-28's.
I've never heard of a pre-war 000-15 either, I thought the 15 series just came in like 0 size guitars in the thirties.
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  #92  
Old 07-05-2009, 08:52 PM
Howard Klepper Howard Klepper is offline
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Originally Posted by SongwriterFan View Post
Hearsay doesn't count.

I wonder if anybody has ever taken a "challenge" like the one I'm about to propose, and passed it?

Have somebody play 30 guitars for the subject, from behind a curtain that prevents the subject from seeing the guitars. Label the guitars 1 to 30. Play the same exact passage on each guitar.

Then, come back an hour later, and play the guitars again (in random order). Same guitarist, same place, same piece of music, etc. Have the subject assign the correct number to each guitar.

Repeat the next day, the next week, the next month, and then the next year . . just for fun.

Maybe there are a FEW who could pass such a test with statistical significance (at least an hour or day later).
1) no one, so far as I know, has ever claimed to be able to meaningfully distinguish among 30 guitars at a single sitting. 6 or 7 maybe.

2) a single blind experiment is not worth much.
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  #93  
Old 07-05-2009, 10:16 PM
Jeff M Jeff M is offline
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Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
1) no one, so far as I know, has ever claimed to be able to meaningfully distinguish among 30 guitars at a single sitting. 6 or 7 maybe.
Oh...I'm sure somebody will make that claim any day now.

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Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post

2) a single blind experiment is not worth much.
Got that right.
Nor, as much as we would like to think otherwise, is anecdotal "evidence".
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  #94  
Old 07-05-2009, 10:50 PM
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Originally Posted by jeremy3220 View Post
There are guitars of the same name(000-15) being made today but they're built differently. Just like Martin still makes a guitar called the "D-28" but it's very different than a 1935 D-28. You can't expect to know how a 1930's 000-15 sounded when it was new by going out and playing a 2009 000-15.
Hi jeremy...
You may be right, they may bear different model numbers. The ones I've played are - all-mahogany-bodied - small bodied - 14 fret Martins built in the late 1930s to mid-40s. My assignment of 000 is likely wrong, as they told me the model, and I seem to have it confused (or they do).

I'll be going to guitar society this week and if either guy is there, I'll ask for the exact model. Those older guitars are still a far different sound/feel than any currently built all mahogany small bodied, 14 fret Martin I've played in the past few years.

If some here are correct, and they actually sounded like they do now when they were new, and indeed have not aged/opened up, then Martin has made some serious mistakes in the past few decades and should go back to building instruments like the 50-90 year old Martin guitars I've been fortunate to play.
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  #95  
Old 07-05-2009, 11:47 PM
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Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
...no one, so far as I know, has ever claimed to be able to meaningfully distinguish among 30 guitars at a single sitting. 6 or 7 maybe.
...a single blind experiment is not worth much.
Hi Howard...
I agree that blind tests are not useful. Some of the fallacy I see with most proposed blind testing of guitars is the assumption that guitars can be played or listened to blind and any useful or conclusive information would result.

Coffee cuppers and wine tasters have a very methodical - and well defined ways - of tasting and grading coffee &/or wines. I've been roasting coffees as a serious hobby-ist for nearly a decade now, and have dabbled with some serious folks who regularly hold cuppings (for selecting beans and arriving at roasting levels for the beans they use in their own stores).

They train their own tasting teams in-house, and teach them language to communicate their findings. It's very serious business, but none of the cuppers I know think of it as very scientific...merely useful for their own purposes.

They are not interested in publishing results. And they rarely agree among themselves as to which is the best tasting coffee (they each have preferences), but nearly always agree as to which are the best quality of the beans they have sampled that day.

With both wine and coffee tasting, very small quantities of wine or coffee sniffed, inhaled, tasted, swished, and then spit out, and extensive notes taken - nobody is blindfolded, nor is any aspect of the process hidden.

And between each sample, the palate is cleansed with water and a moment is taken.

Is it possible to cleanse the ears/brain between proposed guitar samplings? Do we have language to describe what we feel and hear? Could some be developed? (perhaps)

It seems we players (some of us anyway) have some sort of personal need to empirically establish once-for-all scientific sounding things about guitar tone, and to prove that our personal opinion is the only one - or at least the best one...

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  #96  
Old 07-06-2009, 12:22 AM
M.D.Smith M.D.Smith is offline
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Ok folks, I finally got time to upload.
There are two files and you only need to play them using the websites player.
You can also download them too but the files a pretty big for MP3's

Please read this first:
Just a little history.
Guitar comparison #2 involved comparing guitar (A) 2002 Taylor 815 to guitar (B) 2009 Taylor Custom Jumbo.

Guitar comparison #3 is just the Taylor Custom Jumbo after playing it for two months.


Whatever your ears hear, is yours. You may not hear anything different or you may hear a world of difference. I'm just as curious as the next guy and want to hear for myself if there are changes in sound, tone, bloom, etc..

Both of these recordings were done with the same mic, same cord, same computer, same operating system done in the same room with the same humidity and temperature in the same location.
The only significant variables that I am aware of is time and me.
The first recording may seem a bit softer than the second. After the first recording I had a difficult time hearing it on basic computer speakers so I bumped the input level a bit on my sound blaster as I recorded this new one.

This is not the "end all" by any means but to me, its better than trying to remember a sound that is in the past.

Draw your own conclusions, form your own opinions as to whether my guitar is opening up or doing whatever.
Thank you and enjoy.





http://www.4shared.com/file/10462393...parison_2.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/11623663...parison_3.html
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  #97  
Old 07-06-2009, 06:36 AM
SongwriterFan SongwriterFan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
2) a single blind experiment is not worth much.
It could be made much closer to a true double-blind test by using RECORDINGS. There'd still be the issue of having the guitarist play each piece exactly the same (so that there weren't other ways to tell one recording from another other than the guitar's response).

Still, even as proposed, it's better (scientifically speaking) than somebody simply claiming he has heard his guitar "open up". That's not even single-blind.

I'm simply trying to address the issue raised by the OP. Or at least a subset of it. I think you can trust what you hear . . . it's simply that you can't REMEMBER it well enough to trust it for very long.

If one can't identify 10 guitar recordings (same passage and player, different guitars) after multiple years, then how can he possibly tell if his guitar has opened up?
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  #98  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:06 AM
1cubilindo 1cubilindo is offline
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Wine and coffee tasting takes place in the here and now. A sip of this and that in a very short time span. IMO the analogy is flawed.
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  #99  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:15 AM
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Brent Hutto Brent Hutto is offline
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There are certainly wine critics who will compare a mouthful of such-and-such wine as it tastes right now to a mouthful of some wine or another that they tasted in 1974. They are completely nuts if they expect anyone to consider such a comparison other than patent bushwah.
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  #100  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:33 AM
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Originally Posted by SongwriterFan View Post
...If one can't identify 10 guitar recordings (same passage and player, different guitars) after multiple years, then how can he possibly tell if his guitar has opened up?
Hi SF...
How can a recording ever provide the tactile feedback of the pressure of the strings when squeezed together by the picking hand, or the resonance of a guitar against the chest, and the tactile feedback of the string tension under the fretting hand? Or how much resistance there is when strumming through the strings with the nail or plectrum? How can a recording replicate the feel of harmonics when struck? Or the liveliness (or lack of it) in the attack on the strings?

How can any of these be divorced from the process and experience of playing a guitar? It would be like sampling coffee by only sniffing it after being brewed without being allowed to taste it. Playing a guitar is not just about hearing what a microphone hears, it is a multi-dimensional experience.
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  #101  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:39 AM
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Originally Posted by 1cubilindo View Post
Wine and coffee tasting takes place in the here and now. A sip of this and that in a very short time span. IMO the analogy is flawed.
Hi 1c...
Wasn't the proposed blind test of 30 guitars behind a sheet a here-n-now proposal? All analogy will be flawed in some respects, and my examples of coffee cupping were offered as a point of comparison and to illustrate the lack we have in the area 'sampling' guitars. A single dimension experiment (only hearing them without seeing or playing them as well) to identify guitars is flawed too.

At least those fields have developed a testing framework and language to help communicate what is being experienced. All one has to do is read the posts here to realize no such language exists among guitarists (at least not that I'm aware of).
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  #102  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:41 AM
SongwriterFan SongwriterFan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ljguitar View Post
How can a recording ever provide the tactile feedback of the pressure of the strings when squeezed together by the picking hand, or the resonance of a guitar against the chest, and the tactile feedback of the string tension under the fretting hand? Or how much resistance there is when strumming through the strings with the nail or plectrum?
You mean you can't tell if a guitar has opened up without these things?

And how could you possibly remember THESE things, too, from how a guitar played YEARS ago?
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  #103  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:56 AM
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Originally Posted by SongwriterFan View Post
You mean you can't tell if a guitar has opened up without these things?
Hi SF...
I remember with great specificity the sound and feel of my Martin D-28 that I played several hours per week for 17 years, I remember how it felt and played and sounded and resonated differently from the first Olson I played in 1986. I remember the experience of playing that first Olson in great detail too...and it affected me so deeply I sold the Martin and saved for several years and bought an Olson.

I remember how that first Olson differed from the one I currently own. I remember how the Somogyi OM cutaway, Brazilian Rosewood/German Spruce, felt and played and sounded that I played at the Healdsburg show in 2005.

I cannot explain how I remember these things, anymore than I can explain why I don't forget detailed chord progressions to songs I learned 45 years ago...that I have not played in years, nor how I can play songs with folks that I've only heard and never actually played before by just recalling what I've heard in the past.
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  #104  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:56 AM
1cubilindo 1cubilindo is offline
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Originally Posted by ljguitar View Post
Hi 1c...
Wasn't the proposed blind test of 30 guitars behind a sheet a here-n-now proposal? All analogy will be flawed in some respects, and my examples of coffee cupping were offered as a point of comparison and to illustrate the lack we have in the area 'sampling' guitars. A single dimension experiment (only hearing them without seeing or playing them as well) to identify guitars is flawed too.

At least those fields have developed a testing framework and language to help communicate what is being experienced. All one has to do is read the posts here to realize no such language exists among guitarists (at least not that I'm aware of).
Hi,

I'm not on board with the 30 guitar thing either.

If you tried 30 wines they would have to hide your car keys. (but would be more entertaining)

Guitars, like people, change over time. How we remember them is in our heads.
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  #105  
Old 07-06-2009, 07:59 AM
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Originally Posted by 1cubilindo View Post
Hi,
...Guitars, like people, change over time. How we remember them is in our heads.
Hi 1c...
I also remember them in my hands, fingers, arms, chest, and any other part of me that comes into contact with a guitar as I play it.
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