This guitar has a wonderfully rich and powerful sound, with a big bottom end. It is capable of delicate and subtle tones when called for, but what I love about it, is that big sound which I can use to great advantage given the mix of acoustic funk and blues which I play. It certainly is more than comparable to other more expensive Martin guitars. The solid spruce top, the solid dark rosewood sides, along with white binding give the guitar a very striking and high quality appearance. The binding and fingerboard on this model are made of synthetic materials (check the Martin site for details), but to my hands and ears, it certainly feels and plays as well as ebony. The neck is fairly narrow and fast (it would easily accomodate a faster player than I) and the frets, which I find to be too heavy on most new Martin guitars, are actually pretty comfortable.(I have several other acoustics against which it can be measured, including vintage Gibson and Epiphone and, my favorite, a '78 Daion, but that is a great story for another day.) The Fishman-Martin electronics are particularly good; ideal, in fact, for live performances, with EQ, tuner, and stereo pizeo/mike blender capabilities. (NOTE - I am told that it's big boomy bottom end make this guitar difficult to recording purposes.) I began shopping for an acoustic-electric in the $600-$700 range and played almost everything available in that class, including Ovation, Ibanez, Takamine, Dean, Yamaha, Fender, Epiphone and more. And I found some decent instruments in this range, but nothing that really grabbed me. Then I picked up this Martin very simply fell in love. The sound from that big dreadnought body went right through me. And I found that the leap in quality sound between what $700 was going to buy and this guitar was huge. Huge! Interestingly, though, the difference between this model Martin at $1,400 and other much more expensive guitars (I shopped it against other Martin guitars, and Taylor and Larrivee models) was only very slight. In fact, with it's great electronics, I preferred this model over most of the other more expensive guitars. This is an excellent instrument, worthy of the Martin name and I think that, at it's price point, simply the best you will find.

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