Several trips to Edinburgh guitar stores including trying Martins and Taylors going up as high as £2,500 (3200 euros) got me nowhere. "Different" to my main Tanglewood TW73 acoustic, but none gave me enough extra to justify anything like the extra price tag. A Maton EBG808 took me by surprise as being the best bet in that I found myself enjoying playing it and being creative, and liked the sound despite the laminate back and sides.
But then I got chances to try a couple of handmade guitars. They weren't for me as they were too big and needed a stronger style of playing than mine to bring out the sound. If I did play them harder they were very good though. Which got me thinking about handmade options. Research into handmade guitars then started in earnest. But most often in the UK you have to get one made for you - often around a one year waiting list, and you're buying before trying the actual instrument. Not keen on either of those ideas. I said about my difficulties on a UK acoustic forum and one of the members let me borrow their 14 year old Lowden S10 for a few weeks! I was encouraged as a result to seriously pursue the hand made route. So I started scouring websites to track down any shops selling handmade guitars. Very few in the UK and hardly any at all in Scotland. I tracked down a shop in Stonehaven - a 280 mile round trip ... a stay in a hotel overnight was needed and arranged.
I tried in the following order:-
Brook Clyst - Parlour guitar - European Spruce with Maple back and sides - short Scale - 44mm nut.
Brook Lyn - Sort of 00 size - Sitka Spruce with Mahogany back and sides - short scale - 45mm nut.
Brook Torridge - Sitka Spruce with Bubinga back and sides - short scale 44mm nut.
Lowden S32 - Sitka Spruce with Rosewood back and sides - short scale - 45mm nut.
Tanglewood TW73 .... for comparative purposes.
The Brook Taw they had in a couple of flavours - OM sort of size but bigger than my TW45 which is about all I can take.
The Taw I only got as far as holding and playing a very few notes. Way too big and uncomfortable for me. The Torridge didn't appeal to me for sound and somehow sounded slightly out of tune whatever I did on the tuning. The Lyn was OK - I quite liked the sound, but for me it was no better than my TW73. I tried the TW73 they had and didn't like it as much as mine. Very different sound and tone to the one I have - and didn't seem as responsive - which just shows how two acoustic guitars of the same model are likely to sound different.
Two strong contenders remained. The Brook Clyst they had was the easiest acoustic guitar to play that I've ever tried and the music flowed very easily. I also liked the sounds it made and those sounds were not like the TW73 despite both being Parlour size - with a European Spruce / Maple combo I didn't expect they would be the same. It had really good responsiveness and projection and the sound was bright but in a musical way - but there was a hint of the what I'd call buzziness, a little bit of an edge. It was immediately apparent that the Lowden S32 had a clarity, responsiveness and smoothness in its sounds. Very much to my surprise, with its Sitka Spruce top and Rosewood back and sides, it was not as bright in the upper registers as the old S10 that I borrowed which was Cedar / Mahogany. Which was good in my view, as I found the S10 had just too much treble/jangle for comfort. I also found it easier to play than the old S10 - the shorter scale helped on the S32 and the waist is more curved which seemed to make it stay on my right leg much better. It also had in common with that S10 a great balance across all the notes of the fretboard and sustain with the hint of tonal bloom.
So I had a choice of the Clyst which was much easier to play and the S32 that had the higher quality of sound. The S32 was more expensive and I was very, very, very, very, very, very tempted by the Clyst. But I was also tempted a great deal by the Lowden as it just exuded class. I found myself taking a deep breath and going for the Lowden for an extra £360 (460 euros). It will be a Christmas 2014, 60th Birthday and 2015 Christmas present combined. Plus I'll be saving hard for another 7 months at least to pay for it. It is under the bed in it's case till Christmas. I can't help feeling I'm mad to spend so much on a guitar - it is maybe also too good for my ability level.
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I'll upload further pictures and soundclips tomorrow evening.
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