Smaller-bodied acoustic for fingerpicking recommendations/poor man's 000-15SM?

earwighoney

Loobs said:

Been impressed with what I've heard of the E10 00 so far. 

I have that very guitar. 

I own guitars by Eastman, Furch, Recording King and Guild. I'd say all the build qualities for those guitars are all great for their respective price points.

I'm fairly sure the same factory makes Sigma Guitars as the one who makes Recording King, I've played a few Sigma's and the quality is about the same, in how if you look inside the box there are a few untidy bits of work here and there but they sound and play well, I really like the shape of the neck for my RK. The RK's are the heavy braced of all the guitars I own, but that's not always a bad thing, depends on what kind of playing style you have.

IMO, I'd still recommend streching the budget a little more and going for the Mahogany Furch OM, they are very lightly braced, light guitars with a 45mm wide nut and even though it's more expensive than a few guitars mentioned here the build quality can be close to a Martin at a good chunk less and made in Europe. Seen it online for just over £900.

As for the Guild M/OM 120's, I'd say for those try before you buy, I played a few of those in Wunjo and one OM-120 I tried had a pretty high action and quite a low saddle and by the time it'd be lowered to get a good playable action, there'd be almost no saddle left, it sounded a bit dead as well. I played a few M-120's which really impressed me though.

malcolmkindness

Loobs said:

malcolmkindness said:

I have a Recording King ROS 616 all mahogany 000, which is terrific value for the money and very like the Martin 00015sm.

It seems they've either changed the name of this model or don't make it anymore. Which is it closest to from their current range? 

https://www.recordingking.com/browse-by-shape

It's not like any of these, it's a 12 fret slotted head model, all mahogany, I bought mine second hand. There are certainly some clips of it on YouTube you could check out, perhaps there's another second hand one out there somewhere.

Stuckfast

I was going to recommend a Larrivee but I've just looked up current prices for new ones... blimey. When did that happen? Still if you can find a secondhand Larrivee OM within your price range I'd go for it.