Archtop guitars not as popular as flattops...

[gerardo1000]

Why? There are few forum members who own an archtop compared to a flattop. The archtop section of this forum has a new thread no more often than once a week... I own both kind of guitars and find that archtops have their own advantages: loud volume, comrtable to hold, easy to set up, easy to re-string, beautiful look...

[stormin1155]

As you know from owning/playin them, they sound..... different. They don't have the big sound of a dreadnaught. It's more of a niche... they sound right for some styles of music, but don't have the sound most people want in an acoustic guitar. I have one archtop, and seldom play it.

[Spyvito]

Archtop are very cool and have a different sound. I have a 1928 Gibson and a handmade thin body from a contemporary luthier. I love them both.

[Mandobart]

A good quality archtop has a solid wood carved top and carved back. Takes a lot more hours to build one (than a flattop), so they typically cost more. Realistically a decent new archtop is going to run ~$1,000 and go up from there. You can get a very decent flattop for about a third of that. My Eastman archtop has become my main guitar these days. I've played several lower-end archtops and was thoroughly underwhelmed; almost no acoustic tone; they're really built to plug in.

Also , most archtops need fairly heavy strings to really drive them; I use Martin Retro Monel .013's. This ends up requiring a little more fretting effort than a flattop running lights.

[Jcamp]

I’d personally love to own a arch top..... but they are a lot more expensive than a decent flattop. A starter flat top is what? $100 give or take $20. The cheapest (new) archtop is around $400ish......

[LyleGorch]

That’s because you should go on —- jazz guitar online!

[BoneDigger]

I own one acoustic archtop. They certainly have their own tone, and that tone is quite pleasing. However, most of us grew up listening to music played on flat top guitars.

[mr. beaumont]

There was, of course, a time when archtops were a heck of a lot more popular.

They can be used for anything, but they do really excel at something that's a bit more of a niche market. And no slight to flattop players, but almost anybody can play the simplest chord strums on a flat top and they can sound great...archtops...maybe not so much.

And of course...there's the whole confusion of archtops that are really acoustic guitars, and archtops that are really electric guitars...doesn't make it the easiest for people to know how to get into them, and for a lot of folks--they try to play an electric archtop like an acoustic, and the sound just isn't there, so they write them off completely.

[zombywoof]

I own three archtops. None is a daily player and none are top of the line instruments. But for me archtops are like 12 strings in that there is a certain itch only they can scratch. I own a blonde NYC-made Epiphone Triumph Regent which was a middling offering and I believe the least expensive Epi to have a carved top and back plate. I also own a 1935 Gibson-made Capital (the house brand of Jenkins Music) which has a pressed top and is X braced so has the "two hump" top. The last is a Kay Kraft round soundhole archtop which pretty much sounds as fat and punchy as a good flattop.

[zombywoof]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

There was, of course, a time when archtops were a heck of a lot more popular.

If you are talking about Gibson and Epiphone there was a time when they were all that was available.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by zombywoof

If you are talking about Gibson and Epiphone there was a time when they were all that was available.

Well, that's not really true. Sure, they were the kings, but there was Gretsch, and Stromberg, and a ton of European makers, and a bunch of cheaper American brands too...

But yeah, at one point it seemed anybody who was anybody was playing a Gibson...

[J. Scott]

I think that a lot of the imbalance is perceived. If I buy a Yamaha FG830 I NOW have a "flattop" guitar and am accepted into the that community. If I buy an Ibanez or Epiphone archtop it's never really archtop enough to be part of the club.

[JGinNJ]

Unless you're into jazz, the acoustic guitar sound from the 50's on is pretty much the flattop or nylon string. Many people don't even know what an archtop is. I've had people ask me more than once "What kind of guitar is that?".

They really are different instruments, sonically. For a while I tried to get my flattops to sound like a "jazz guitar", which pretty much means, without the jangly trebles and ringing sustain. It doesn't work with a spruce-top Martin, but maybe I'll try again with a mahogany one.

[BoneDigger]

Originally Posted by J. Scott

I think that a lot of the imbalance is perceived. If I buy a Yamaha FG830 I NOW have a "flattop" guitar and am accepted into the that community. If I buy an Ibanez or Epiphone archtop it's never really archtop enough to be part of the club.

It is definitely true that archtop aficionados are pickier about the tone that they expect from an archtop and most are not shy about voicing that. I use my archtop almost exclusively for rockabilly type playing, but many EXPECT or even DEMAND that an archtop be a JAZZ machine. Anything else is blasphemy. For most flat top players, if we don't like a tone, we just say "It's not for me, but others may like it." Those archtop lovers can be quite demanding and harsh about any guitar that they don't like. Oh well, difference is what makes the world go round! In the end, it's just people playing guitars.

[zombywoof]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Well, that's not really true. Sure, they were the kings, but there was Gretsch, and Stromberg, and a ton of European makers, and a bunch of cheaper American brands too...

But yeah, at one point it seemed anybody who was anybody was playing a Gibson...

Gretsch did not offer anything but archtops from 1939 to around 1948 when their first flattops came out. While Stromberg, Lyon & Healy, Schmidt, Holzapfel, of course, Martin and others were readily available, they were at best Concerts which could not compete with something like the 16" Gibson L4s and L5s in orchestras. That would have to wait until the first 16" flattops started rolling out of the factories in the early 1930s.

Where flattops could compete was the early electrics such as the Stromberg Electro Instruments which began appearing around 1928 coinciding with the appearance of rectifier tubes, power triodes and the first modern cone speaker.