Posted by Ken
on 7/14/2009, 3:56 pm
Hi Folks,
Below is an edited version--to make it less confusing to Musicians' Rendezvous members--of a review I posted on Monday, July 13, 2009, on the CarbonGuitar.com discussion board:
On Saturday, July 11, 2009, I received a newly-released Composite Acoustics Tim Stafford Signature Model All-Graphite Guitar with Fishman Onboard Aura Pickup/Preamp System from a dealer in Nashville. I got a nice price on it and I'd been GASSING to try one since I saw its impending release announcement back in April of this year. My guitar was the third one this dealer recently received from Composite Acoustics. The first CA Tim Stafford was Tim Stafford's personal first-production model of this guitar and was sent directly to the dealer from Composite Acoustics and played for the first time by Tim Stafford at the dealer's location in a special CA Tim Stafford Signature Model-release concert. The second one was purchased by another super-picker, Bryan Sutton. Being that mine is the third one, I feel I've somehow rubbed elbows with the Bluegrass elite pickers even though I sure can't play like they do!
I'll give you a review based on my limited playing time with the new Composite Acoustics Tim Stafford Signature Model Guitar. First some background on my style. For my style of playing, which is heavily based on old timey and bluegrass (think "Under The Double Eagle," Railroad Earth's "Been Down This Road Before," "Amie," "Wildwood Flower," "Church Street Blues"--I'm still working on this one!), I find a dreadnought guitar the ideal style to play for me. I like my axes setup with either medium guage or light-medium guage strings because these are the only guages that really give me a strong and clear tone when I dig in. That being said, I like my action a hair over medium height and I like my neck relief with the beginning of a noticeable curve, maybe .010" or so. My technique affords me plenty of attack volume and control, and in over 40 years of playing, I've only broken ten strings and some of those were when tuning. I am by no means a super picker but an average Joe who has played many a solo, four-set nights in bars that were loud with crowd noise, clapping and singing along with what I was doing. I've owned close to a hundred high-end axes over the years including those currently in my signature, so I think I have a good grasp of the tone I like to hear in a guitar.
The CA Tim Stafford Signature Model, at first strum, sounded clear and quite warm with a full resonance and I thought there was a woodiness to the tone. The louder I strummed and dug in, a carbon-guitar brashness started creeping into the tone and there was some compression of volume. For comparison, I find an Adirondack-topped dreadnought, like my new Martin D-18GE, properly setup can deliver more volume and headroom before it starts to compress the volume. To be sure, a guitar's setup has a lot to do with this, because volume compression is ultimately a factor of the strings rattling like crazy against the frets. Regarding setup, the CA Tim, for me had too much neck relief for any guitar, carbon or wood. It was something like .020" when using a regular neck-relief measurement method. This may be fine for some players but I can't fathom why it would be when it isn't necessary and leads to improper fretting and early left-hand fatique. If this is truly the way Tim Stafford likes his guitars setup, CA WILL have many coming back to them like mine did. If I was to try and grade the CA Tim Stafford's acoustic tone against a Martin D-18GE or typical HD-28, I'd say that as a live performance guitar, it is fully professional and worthy. Amplified, I noticed when played through my Fishman SoloAmp, the 3rd and 4th strings were a bit attenuated compared to the other strings. Some players wouldn't notice this but I do. This can probably be fixed with a light cut on a mill to flatten the saddle's bottom. If you sand a saddle's bottom, you can introduce arching due to downward finger-pressure. Another way to properly flatten a saddle's bottom is to use the method that Mike MacNichol shows in another thread on the board. The Fishman Onboard Aura pickup/preamp system is worth having and does a nice job of rendering a natural tone to the CA Tim's amplified sound.
Now, let's look at some cosmetic flaws that I found on this guitar. There was a .030" gap between the rear of the nut and the headstock, which to me was puzzling. This was the last thing I noticed upon my first once-over of the guitar after I removed it from its case. Up to that point my inspection had me swelling inside with the cosmetic beauty of this guitar. That gap had me immediately turning to my wife and saying, "It's Going Back!" This cosmetic flaw shouldn't be on any guitar! The only other cosmetic flaw I found was the CA logo had a bit of swirl over it in the polyester finish. Not a biggie! One more thing, and this I think is Fishman's doing, the pointer on the Image Knob on the Aura preamp had its pointer 1/2 a number off location. i.e., when the knob position was activating Aura Image 1, it was pointed exactly between 1 and 2. This could probably be remedied with an e-mail to Fishman to see if the knob is removable and can be pushed back on its shaft in a correct orientation.
Overall, I liked the new CA Tim Stafford Signature Model, and although I've returned it to the dealer, I may order another one some day but only if I can play one in person by hopefully having one or two available at a nearby dealer or actually going to CA, in Lafayette, Louisianna, and trying some finished ones before they're shipped anywhere. I've actually taken a new guitar back to Martin, driving 300 miles overnight, and played it on the factory floor for John Marshall, back in 1982. It was a new Martin D-28E, and was their first guitar with an undersaddle transducer/preamp system and I thought it sounded like crap when amplified. I'm a GAS-crazed ma'fa and an equal-opportunity, guitar-brand critic and I'm not any particular guitar-brand crusader. When I feel something isn't the way it should be and could be, I'll let folks know about it if they want to listen to me! In the end, your actual hands-on experience with any guitar is more important than anything I may tell you.
I hope the above helps anyone in making a decision to buy a CA Tim and remember, if you don't like it, send it back to the dealer!
Folk On!
Ken
Dealer Supplied Inquiry Photos Sent To Me Prior To Purchasing My Now Returned Composite Acoustics Tim Stafford Signature Model Guitar with Fishman Onboard Aura:
Responses: