Posted by Martin
on 7/15/2009, 10:44 pm, in reply to "Martin Grand J12-40E Special--Anyone Play One?"
I played the J12-40E at a local store. Sounds and looks great, but I felt like I was playing a Rickenbacker electric, which are beautiful, sound incredible, but have a notoriously narrow neck.
Why Martin elected to go with a 1 13/16" narrow neck at the nut instead of Taylor's 1 7/8" is beyond me. Anyone with larger hands would miss the extra 1/16". With fingers perfectly placed, touching the adjoining strings is unavoidable.
So if I want this Martin axe, which stickers at $5199, to work for me, I have to go through the Martin Custom Shop to get the neck that should have been on there in the first place.
Perhaps Martin's senior execs and luthier/design brain trust are too busy thinking about new ways to dilute the brand with low end (under $1000) guitars. Does BMW or Mercedes make a $14,000 car? There are strong business reasons for protecting the integrity of a brand such as Martin.
So this review does not seem like an endorsement of Martin competitor Taylor, I bought a Taylor GA-3 12 string two weeks ago and there's a scoop in the neck. It's going back. Taylor's seem very sensitive -- more than average -- to humidity and drying out. They come packed with humidity management instructions inside and outside the case.
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