Are my ears broken?

[Optimist0905]

I went to Guitar Center today to test out some various acoustics they had in stock. It was the kind of day where you go not to look for anything in particular but to just go do something. I played a Yamaha fs820, a Taylor 224 k dlx, a Martin 000 15M, a Martin GPC 11, a Taylor Gs mini rosewood, a Taylor GT Urban Ash, and a Taylor American Dream Concert. And I quickly noticed something, the laminated back and side guitars had way more bass response to my ear than the solid wood guitars. Maybe it's because I've been playing my Epiphone EJ200 for too long but the bass response out of the laminates just sounded amazing. I know that it's almost acoustic blasphemy to speak against the Martin 000 15M but I was not impressed by the sound as much as I thought I would be. Yes, it sounded great but compared to the Yamaha Fs820 it almost sounded like something was lacking in the low end and it sounded very thin. The Martin GPC 11 (all solid) and the Taylor 224k dlx( solid top layered back and sides) were very close but the Taylor just had more of a bass response to my ear than the all solid Martin, even though I'm highly considering both as my next guitar. The GS mini and the GT had the same result where the laminated b/s GS mini sounded better than the GT. Has anyone else had this issue or are my ears really broken and just haven't been introduced to what a proper acoustic guitar should sound like? Note: I didn't get to hear these guitars from a listener's perspective just the player's perspective. I feel like everything I've learned about acoustic guitar build quality was turned on it's head today. Not gonna lie,. I feel kinda lost with this new experience.

[fartamis]

It was a bad day ... go back and play them another day .

For me a laminate has never sounded as full as rich as sweet as a solid wood.

[buddyhu]

If you want to try to reach a generalization about “laminate guitars” vs “all solid wood guitars”, you might want to move up the food chain a bit.

I had a Martin Custom D from Musician’s friend (all solid wood), which had a suggested list price of $1100 when i bought it. To me, it sounded somewhat better than my Yamaha FG180 (solid top, laminate back and sides) under certain conditions (humidity and freshness of strings could level the playing field), but it was not an overwhelming or compelling difference much of the time. But comparing either of these to a higher grade Martin or well regarded guitars from other makers tended to reveal the full potential of solid wood guitars (though one should acknowledge that there are still some laminate guitars that can shine, and hat conditions may effect what you hear).

Probably best not to try to generalize....there too many variables involved.

Faratmis provides some good advice: play the same guitars again on a different, or maybe audition them several times to see which of your impressions endure, and which come into question as you obtain more experience with them.

[Tannin]

Agrre with Buddyhu. But to generalise anyway, laminate guitars can sound great, but they tend to sound the way they sound. What you hear is what you get. All-solid guitars have more personality. They can morph and change with your mood and your playing style, and they have a more subtle depth to them.

I think of it this way - it's like the difference between buying a truckload of canned peaches and planting a peach tree. The former will give you decent-tasting fruit straight out of the tin every time, but every one tastes exactly the same as every other one, where the latter provides an ever-changing variety of flavours and textures that you don't get tired of.

[johbren]

I am very Impressed by the base responce of my Taylor 214 dlx. Overall sound as well.

[FingahPickah]

So true that there are many factors that affect the tone of any acoustic instrument.

One consideration is, of course, the quality of the wood; for solid wood absolutely - but there are cheap filler/laminates and there are also good quality layered laminates. Seagull, Taylor and others have had great success with them to produce good sounding instruments that can sell for less.

I believe there is consensus in that all solid wood instruments "age" differently tonally. That said - one could play two brand new similar models (i.e., a Taylor 200 series vs a Taylor 300 series) - actually prefer the sound of the 200 - but the 300 may well surpass it later as it's played in... All solid wood bodies breathe, vibrate, etc.. that tends to enhance it's tone. Laminate back & side instruments tend to change significantly less - which could even be a player's preference.

And BTW - since the original topic was "bass" of a laminate body ... I bought a brand new $200.00 Yamaha FS800T last year for the purpose of having it converted to a mandocello... my luthier buddy did a great job... and the bass response (low CGDA tuning) is more than sufficient. It sounds great....

[warfrat73]

Potentially many things going on here. One being that higher end guitars tend to get played more in the shop and are likely to hang around longer, and are more likely to have dead strings. Also possible that the solid wood guitars you played were a bit over humidified... the "high end room" at GC tends to get humidified a lot more than the general acoustic room.

Also tend to agree with Buddy that you might need to move up the food chain a bit to hear major differences... plenty of mediocre to bad solid wood guitars out there, solid wood in and of itself is not a magical recipe for better tone, there are lots of other variables.

[AndrewG]

Professional classical guitarists have no issues with the response of Greg Smallman's laminate guitars, nor with paying £25,000+ for one. £27,500 for a laminated guitar?

https://www.londonguitarstudio.com/g...an-guitars.irc

[drplayer]

People hear what they hear, and your ears aren't broken--but maybe they've changed? If bass response is the main driver for you in selecting a guitar, and the laminate guitars had more of it to your ear, then buy the laminate guitar and put the rest of the money aside for a rainy day. Or, as others have mentioned, maybe play a few higher end solid wood models and see if you notice a difference. But, don't deny what you hear...the guitar only has to sound good to you (unless you're a performer).

I'm not sure if it's a gift or a curse, but some people just have more refined hearing than others and keep it their entire lives, which allows them to hear tones, nuances and subtleties that not everyone can. My hearing was never fantastic and I never trusted myself to tune without an electronic tuner. I could get close (usually a bit flat), but I certainly never had anything close to perfect pitch. Then, I suffered sudden and permanent hearing loss and am now virtually deaf in my right ear and wear a hearing aid in my left...it changed everything for me.

I had to adapt and reassess to my "new normal", and consequently sold guitars I loved over recent years because the tonal attributes they had when I first purchased them became absent to me with my hearing loss. I used to favor mahogany, but now rosewood sounds much more pleasing to me. The subtle nuances that I heard on extremely high-end guitars from some of the best builders in the world no longer are audible to me, so other than reputation and impeccable craftsmanship, there is no real difference to me between a $3K guitar and a $20K guitar. Maybe that's good...for my finances at least

Anyway (I got off topic, sorry), just be true to what you hear. Forget about labels, expectations, and what others tell you you should hear or not hear, because only you hear what you hear. Therefore, buy that $500-$1000 guitar if it sounds better to you, because that's all that should matter...

[Goodallboy]

Originally Posted by Tannin

Agrre with Buddyhu. But to generalise anyway, laminate guitars can sound great, but they tend to sound the way they sound. What you hear is what you get. All-solid guitars have more personality. They can morph and change with your mood and your playing style, and they have a more subtle depth to them.

I think of it this way - it's like the difference between buying a truckload of canned peaches and planting a peach tree. The former will give you decent-tasting fruit straight out of the tin every time, but every one tastes exactly the same as every other one, where the latter provides an ever-changing variety of flavours and textures that you don't get tired of.

Perhaps not only a generalization, but an over generalization to make a blanket assessment of every laminate guitar in existence.

Any guitar can be played to ‘morph and change”, by altering technique. I can’t define “more personality”, and “subtle depth”. Laminate guitars can have incredible tone and just as richness as a solid wood guitar and a solid wood guitar can be lacking any redeeming qualities.

A great Yairi guitar is the equal of many, many solid brethren.

[Dru Edwards]

Nothing wrong with preferring a Yamaha Fs820 over Martin GPC 11, or the Taylor over the Martin. Your ears aren't broken since that's what you preferred.

I'd be curious to know if you preferred those laminate / layered back/sides guitars against other all solid wood guitars.

[rllink]

Originally Posted by drplayer

People hear what they hear,

Anyway (I got off topic, sorry), just be true to what you hear. Forget about labels, expectations, and what others tell you should hear or not hear, because only you hear what you hear. Therefore, buy that $500-$1000 guitar if it sounds better to you, because that's all that should matter...

I would take that a step farther and say that people hear what they want to hear. It is all about perception and context. I read a biography of Bob Dylan that told a story of Kris Kristofferson and Pete Seeger. They went to hear Dylan when he first came to New York City. Kristofferson said that when they walked out Seeger told him that Bob Dylan was the worst singer he had ever heard. Kristofferson said a month later Seeger was trying to sing like Dylan.

I think a lot depends on what you are doing. A singer might be looking for nice clean accompaniment that doesn't overpower. An instrumentalist is looking for something more, something that grabs the listener. There are so many variables that I don't know how someone can answer the question.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Optimist0905

...I know that it's almost acoustic blasphemy to speak against the Martin 000-15M but I was not impressed by the sound as much as I thought I would be. Yes, it sounded great but...it almost sounded like something was lacking in the low end and it sounded very thin...Has anyone else had this issue or are my ears really broken and just haven't been introduced to what a proper acoustic guitar should sound like?

I own four all-mahogany guitars - including a Martin D-15S and J12-15 (both discontinued) - and FWIW even many experienced players don't "get it" when it comes to getting the best out of them. By nature, hardwood tops - mahogany, sapele, walnut, koa - break in very differently (and over a longer period) than spruce/cedar/redwood, and IME it's not uncommon to find a brand-new hog-top guitar thin-sounding or lacking in volume/frequency response/dynamic range: simply put, you've got to pound the snot out of them (think Pete Townshend here) an hour or two a day for the first 4-6 months to loosen things up - and don't even think about fingerpicking. There's a reason those Depression-era Martin Style 17 juke-joint/barndance veterans are such little tone monsters, and it's not just near-century-old wood; if you like the way the Martin feels/looks/handles, I say go for it - install a set of Martin Retro Monel strings, play it hard and play it long, and tell us how you feel about it sometime around Labor Day...

[Martin_F]

Laminate guitars tend to get a bad reputation because so many cheap guitars are made of mdf-like materials. A good laminate guitar can be every bit as good or better than a solid guitar, along with having some beneficial properties in that it is much less likely to crack. Real laminate is two or more pieces of solid wood glued together to create a more rigid piece of wood (think plywood only higher end). For the most part, the back and sides being more rigid is a good thing for projection and sustain, as the top does not lose as much physical energy to the back and sides - that is why Greg Smallman and so many high-end builders use laminate over solid woods. At around $30,000 a guitar, they can afford solid woods. Laminate guitars have better properties - you also don’t get the humidity problems for a busy touring artist.

Laminate guitars can be great. But, cheap factory guitars - solid or not - will always be cheap factory guitars and cannot generally compare to great guitars. Most of us play many guitars that are somewhere in the middle(this covers a lot of ground, likely from around $500 maybe up to around $10000) between the elite high-end and cheap lower end factory guitars. In this range, are also some half-decent laminates that perform well.

In classical guitars, there is a much more emphasis on the cult of the individual luthier and high-end builds.

It’s always very possible that even a cheap guitar could sound great! It would just be snobbery to not acknowledge that. Factory Yamaha’s and lower end Martin’s can sometimes outperform their more expensive siblings. If you buy a guitar to play, who cares what it is made of? Most of us, if we are honest, buy guitars to play but always have that idea that we are buying a little piece of art or something that is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, we are buying into the idea of a great guitar as much as the guitar itself.

The bass response of any instrument depends on the build, the bracing and the individual characteristics of the materials used to build it. So, it’s hard to generalize on the bass response of laminate over solid. I think you would get very different results if you listened to many different guitars.

I don’t want to get off topic. But, this is part of the wider discussion.

My opinion...

Martin

[Dotneck]

Originally Posted by Martin_F

Laminate guitars tend to get a bad reputation because so many cheap guitars are made of mdf-like materials. A good laminate guitar can be every bit as good or better than a solid guitar, along with having some beneficial properties in that it is much less likely to crack.
individual characteristics of the materials used to build it. So, it’s hard to generalize on the bass response of laminate over solid. I think you would get very different results if you listened to many different guitars.
Martin

Kent Everett is another builder who used high quality laminates. He experimented with a couple runs of guitars in which he had the woods manufactured to his specifications. He gave up on them because he couldn’t sell them for what they were worth..

So he continued making his solid wood guitars that sell in the $8500 range. He’s retiring soon...