Recommendations for medium-bodied acoustic please (up to £500)

Dave_Mc

Tannin said:

^ This is the old "buy a BMW to save money" bullshit.

"BMWs have lower fuel consumption and hold their value so much better" is the claim. (As compared to, e.g., a Ford or a VW or a Toyota.)

The fuel consumption advantage, if any, is usually swamped by the high cost of servicing and the outrageous price of parts.

As for "holding value" better, the $95,000 BMW can be re-sold for $75,000. Wow! Only 20% depreciation! Isn't that great! Compare with the $35,00 Toyota which you can only get $25,000 for - a massive 30% haircut!

Ahem ....  when you do the sums, the BMW owner actually lost twice as much money to drive the same distance. 

Unless you are Mr Clueless, you don't buy a BMW to save money, you but one because you want one and you can afford to waste a few tens of thousands. Good luck if that's you. 

Yeah. An awful lot of things/hobbies try to persuade you to buy the more expensive thing because you'll save in the long run. It's usually nonsense. It may last a little longer or whatever, but usually nowhere near as much as the difference in price e.g. fancy £15 shower gel- is it nicer than the £1 stuff? Sure. Does it go a bit farther? Probably. Does it go 15 times further? Not a chance. Maybe twice as much, if even.

To be clear- I have nothing against nice stuff. I like nice stuff. But have the guts to admit you just want it. About the only argument that holds water for the expensive stuff is that if you're buying the cheaper stuff as a stopgap and intend to (or suspect you will eventually) end up buying the expensive option, then just buying the dearer thing first will probably save you money. But apart from that... it's probably better but it's more expensive and it's therefore going to cost you more. That's kind of how it works.

Tannin said:

LAG is French. That's the good news. The bad news is that they basically just sell stuff made in China, same as 1,953,134 other brands (including Faith). Still, has to be worth a look. 

Faiths are made in Indonesia I think. Also I think most (all?) of the Lags are laminate back and sides whereas all of the Faiths are all-solid. (I haven't tried any Lag acoustics, just to be clear.)

The Faiths (that I've tried at least) are nice enough, at least at the ~£500 price point, that I tend to agree with @DartmoorHedgehog - I'm not sure you're going to get anything that much better that it's worth the risk of buying something they can't try- especially when they can try the Faiths and pick a good one.

Tannin

Good information, Dave. I was sloppy. However for all practical purposes, Indonesia = China. Both places have very bad human rights records and poor employment practices, and are world leaders in illegal logging of endangered timbers. I've played nice guitars made in both places but I'd be very reluctant to buy one. 

Dave_Mc

Tannin said:

Good information, Dave. I was sloppy. However for all practical purposes, Indonesia = China. Both places have very bad human rights records and poor employment practices, and are world leaders in illegal logging of endangered timbers. I've played nice guitars made in both places but I'd be very reluctant to buy one. 

Yeah. "Very reluctant" is maybe a bit strong for me, lol, but I definitely feel happier when I can buy something which is made somewhere with better human rights, environmental protections etc.

(No worries about the "sloppy" thing, I get stuff wrong all the time!)

guitarjack66

Tannin said:

Good information, Dave. I was sloppy. However for all practical purposes, Indonesia = China. Both places have very bad human rights records and poor employment practices, and are world leaders in illegal logging of endangered timbers. I've played nice guitars made in both places but I'd be very reluctant to buy one. 

I wish I was able to be so choosey over guitars. I am not criticising you at all @Tannin as I agree completely with your stance but we live in a world where its become very difficult to do the 'right' thing when it comes to consumer goods nowadays. I think guitar,and their components,recycling should be a much bigger thing. Obviously when I say 'recycling' I dont mean when you pass your instrument on but when the guitar becomes unusable as a musical instrument and its parts could be re-used.

Tannin

I agree Jack. I'm retired, house is paid for, and I elected not to have children, so my money is my own. I'm far from wealthy, but I can afford to buy (more-or-less) whatever guitars I want. It is easy for me to say "no" to sweatshop guitars. For a 25-year-old with rent to pay, or a 35-year-old with a mortgage, "wanting to" and "being able to" are different things.

Still there are very often solutions even in that case. Here in Oz, I can buy first-class Australian-made guitars for $1500ish, at very least equal in quality and nearly always markedly better than the MII Corts and MIC Sigmas in the same general price class. For reasons I don't fully understand, in the UK you have to pay way over the odds for Australian-made guitars (and no, it is not freight and certainly not duty - there isn't any) but you have access to very reasonably priced guitars of (so I'm told) excellent quality from Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. In America, the Canadians provide a very viable option .(Our ICBM doesn't like them but the normally-insular people of the USA seem to love them.*) And no matter where you live, there is always Yamaha, a company which does most of its manufacturing in China, but in its own facilities with its own labour practices and with an excellent record of using verifiable, legitimate sources for its timbers.

* The guitars, not the people!

Dave_Mc

@Tannin Don't quote me on this, but I think Faith might have its own factory in Indonesia too. 

https://www.faithguitars.com/who-are-faith-guitars/our-workshop
https://www.faithguitars.com/ethics-sustainability

(Whether you believe them or not is of course another thing! And actually reading that first bit it looks like it's not their own factory.)

And yeah the likes of Furch, Dowina etc. are excellent, though the prices are creeping up on them. I got my MusicStore-exclusive all-solid Dowina model for around £600, which is crazy cheap for how nice it is, but (a) they only have one or two models as cheap as that (they do have cheaper laminate models, though) and (b) I would suspect, like most manufacturers, that they have their own sound. So even if you have bought one, if you want another different guitar, you might want something from a different manufacturer for more of a change in tone etc..

Furch prices are now at the point where the all-solids start at about £900; about 4 years ago they started at more like £600! Compare that to Harley Bentons (which I haven't tried!) etc. which start at around £200 for all-solid models- or even Recording King/Cort/Fender/Faith where you can get something all-solid from around £300-£400. I would totally agree with you that if you've got £600+ then you should very seriously start looking at the likes of Dowina etc., but if you only have £300...

Long story short, I kind of both agree and disagree with you, lol. As usual I'm sitting on the fence 

guitarjack66

Dave_Mc said:

@Tannin Don't quote me on this, but I think Faith might have its own factory in Indonesia too. 

https://www.faithguitars.com/who-are-faith-guitars/our-workshop
https://www.faithguitars.com/ethics-sustainability

(Whether you believe them or not is of course another thing! And actually reading that first bit it looks like it's not their own factory.)

And yeah the likes of Furch, Dowina etc. are excellent, though the prices are creeping up on them. I got my MusicStore-exclusive all-solid Dowina model for around £600, which is crazy cheap for how nice it is, but (a) they only have one or two models as cheap as that (they do have cheaper laminate models, though) and (b) I would suspect, like most manufacturers, that they have their own sound. So even if you have bought one, if you want another different guitar, you might want something from a different manufacturer for more of a change in tone etc..

Furch prices are now at the point where the all-solids start at about £900; about 4 years ago they started at more like £600! Compare that to Harley Bentons (which I haven't tried!) etc. which start at around £200 for all-solid models- or even Recording King/Cort/Fender/Faith where you can get something all-solid from around £300-£400. I would totally agree with you that if you've got £600+ then you should very seriously start looking at the likes of Dowina etc., but if you only have £300...

Long story short, I kind of both agree and disagree with you, lol. As usual I'm sitting on the fence 

Watch out for those splinters Dave!

Dave_Mc

guitarjack66 said:

Dave_Mc said:

@Tannin Don't quote me on this, but I think Faith might have its own factory in Indonesia too. 

https://www.faithguitars.com/who-are-faith-guitars/our-workshop
https://www.faithguitars.com/ethics-sustainability

(Whether you believe them or not is of course another thing! And actually reading that first bit it looks like it's not their own factory.)

And yeah the likes of Furch, Dowina etc. are excellent, though the prices are creeping up on them. I got my MusicStore-exclusive all-solid Dowina model for around £600, which is crazy cheap for how nice it is, but (a) they only have one or two models as cheap as that (they do have cheaper laminate models, though) and (b) I would suspect, like most manufacturers, that they have their own sound. So even if you have bought one, if you want another different guitar, you might want something from a different manufacturer for more of a change in tone etc..

Furch prices are now at the point where the all-solids start at about £900; about 4 years ago they started at more like £600! Compare that to Harley Bentons (which I haven't tried!) etc. which start at around £200 for all-solid models- or even Recording King/Cort/Fender/Faith where you can get something all-solid from around £300-£400. I would totally agree with you that if you've got £600+ then you should very seriously start looking at the likes of Dowina etc., but if you only have £300...

Long story short, I kind of both agree and disagree with you, lol. As usual I'm sitting on the fence 

Watch out for those splinters Dave!

Don't worry, I'm well used to them, got a lot of experience sitting on the fence! 

Tannin

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/231220/dowina-pomona-vintage-series

Dave_Mc

Tannin said:

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/231220/dowina-pomona-vintage-series

I think that's the Sauvignon? Just going by the rosette- I could easily be wrong though, they use different names in the UK and Europe for the models, it gets confusing fast! I think it has sapele back and sides. Lovely fretboard on that one- I guess it's still just ebony, but that's a seriously stripey/figured example (mine's more just pretty dark with a couple of very small orangey blobs here and there). He's right about the action on it, too, if mine's anything to go by the action is seriously low. Apart from the heavier strings (they feel like 12s) it basically plays like an electric. Killer bookshelf too, as Mart said

Tannin

I know nothing about it, Dave, other than the nicew things people like you say about them, and it's a bit out of budget but @DartmoorHedgehog could always make an offer and see where it leads.

DartmoorHedgehog

Yes, that one is probably a bit too posh for what we're after - think I'd be taking the piss if I offered £500.  And presumably no pickup either, so that would need to be accounted for as well.  Very nice looking thing though.

bertie

this is going on longer than fixing Lestratcaster's  WIN10 problem   

JonnyBgoode

DartmoorHedgehog said:

 Plymouth's a bit dead now for music shops - only really Sounds Unlimited left, who are excellent for strings and stuff but he doesn't really keep that many guitars - few Fender and Tanglewood acoustics usually but we'll get more variety in Exeter.

Apologies if I haven't read the thread carefully enough but I read you need a case, a bright responsive guitar, maybe bigger than an OM, £500 is ballpark but maybe not limit...

I'm in Plymouth and you are welcome to try this out. Comfortably over a grand's worth of Furch, in excellent condition, with case. No pickup system though:
https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/229279/2015-furch-g21-sw-grand-auditorium-spruce-walnut-price-drop-695-delivered#latest

Bills to pay so I would look at a sensible offer :-)

Soupman

I went with a friend to try some Furch guitars in Manchester a few years ago. He bought one, and I can say they were all class instruments. Not sure which model he got, but it sounds good. Didn't have a pickup in his though.
PS I've seen YouTube vids of Stefan Grossman using a Furch...

bertie

JonnyBgoode said:

I'm in Plymouth 

get the back to Cap'n Jaspers

Smellyfingers

For me buying used at the £500 price level would be almost a no brainer. Buying new you have to factor not only the depreciation but the retailers near 50% mark up as well as 20% Vat.

For instance just bought,  a solid wood,  made in Japan, Takamine for £420 Inc delivery(see recent thread) from a private seller who despite owning since new had hardly used it. 

New, for that sort of price, I might have got a laminate guitar from a less established maker assembled by virtual slave labour in China or Indonesia.


Obviously buying privately over somewhere like ebay or FB you have to be careful and choosy, but I  find that if I play close attention to a seller's feedback as well as using the contact button to ask him/her some searching questions, I can mitigate the risk.

Tannin

bertie said:

this is going on longer than fixing Lestratcaster's  WIN10 problem   

Just don't mention cars and @Emp_Fab ;

Tannin

Ohh, a nice looking unit @JonnyBgoode ;

DartmoorHedgehog

Tannin said:

Ohh, a nice looking unit @JonnyBgoode ;

Wow - I was beginning to think there was NOTHING you liked

@JonnyBgoode appreciate the offer, but I think it's probably a bit overkill for us (and we would need to fit a pickup which would be a shame in such a posh guitar). 

Makes me wonder whether too "good" an acoustic (i.e. very light and resonant) might actually just be a feedback can of worms for live plugged-in use - is that true?