Happy NOGD- 1995 Taylor 910... [with bridgepin content]

[vindibona1]

Confession: I kind of fibbed a little (and am confessing now) that the 910 I was considering was at a local shop, not a private sale. In a previous situations someone had swooped in and got the 814 Cedar over Rosewood I was considering and wasn't going to take that chance and send folks looking. So forgive me for that white lie.

I came to an arrangement with the shop owner of the 910 brought 'er home today. It is ENGLEMAN SPRUCE over rosewood with a ONE PIECE MAHOGANY NECK (no joints). The condition appears excellent with the exception of some minor pick marks in the usual place where a pickguard would be. Other than that seemingly pristine. You can see it in the close up. The area is slightly darker and wouldn't even see it unless you were looking very closely. The attention to detail is quite good, typical of upper end Taylors. What I didn't see until closer inspection is that there appears to be a rosewood ring lining the inner portion of the soundhole. I'd never seen that before. I don't know if it can be seen in the closeup photo of the body. You can see a little of it in the bottom right corner.

At the store I done an A/B comparison with the 910 against their"reimaginged" D35. The 910 sounded so much better than their D35. But when I got it out of the case at home the 910 sounded brighter than in the store and not quite as articulate. I knew it wouldn't sound the same at home.

It was time to comapare the 910 to MY D35 (1972). My D35 had a warmer more lush sound and the 910 sounded "tinny" to me in comparison. I wondered if I had made a mistake. Listening carefully I played a bit more to see if I could pinpoint what it needed to make me happier. In my mind it needed to be a bit warmer and drier. Gibson Masterbuilt strings probably would have done the job. But I didn't want to start messing with strings. Would bone bridge pins help, I wondered?

To cut to the chase, the bone pins did exactly what I had hoped they would do. They warmed up and dried up the sound just enough. And so I went back to once again compare the 910 with the D35... and this time I preferred the 910. I wonder if the bone pins were needed to offset the brightness of the TUSQ saddle? Perhaps at some point I might order a bone saddle and switch back to ebony just to see.

The non-Taylor pickups appears to be a generic UST pickup and must have some sort of pre-amp as it has a battery, but no controls. Through my bass amp it sounded undefined, yet picked up every little finger squeal, just like piezos do. But this one didn't have that ice-pick sound. I don't know what it is but will find out when I go to change the strings. An off to play tonight's gig...

Once I got settled in I fell in love with this guitar. I hadn't mentioned that it has a 1 11/16" nut and a slim C profile. I thought for sure I'd have a tough time with it. I'm used to a wider nut with a C or a narrow nut with a soft V. But it was pretty easy to play. I do have a little left hand cramping now that I'm home. Not sure why. It sounded terrific and I found myself being more expressive on everything. With the EQ dialed in fairly well (except for the sound dude messing with everything after it started sounding good) I was listening through three sources; the AAP Phil Jones I was using as my monitor, the sound bouncing out of the main speakers and off of the walls and the acoustic sound out of the soundhole, all sounded really good.

With all the debate about bridge pins doing a little, nothing... or a lot... I want to reiterate, that IN THIS CASE those bone pins made a NIGHT AND DAY difference in the sound. I was a little surprised as my other Taylors sound better with all or mostly stock ebony pins. I was certain that it would be a short experiment and I'd quickly return to the ebony pins. But no. I like the bone pins in this guitar- a lot.

To finish this up, I can see this becoming my #1 and for the first time in a long time begin thinking about selling some acoustics. A lot of folks claim that the mid 90's was the Golden Age of Taylor guitars. I'm not sure about that, but this guitar sure makes it hard to argue against that.

And there it is. Thanks for taking time to read this.

[AcousticDreams]

WHAT A BEAUTY...congratulations!

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

WHAT A BEAUTY...congratulations!

Thanks. It was a lucky find, both because I found it and had money from a guitar sale on the same day.