[Gresh]

My acoustic fetish has now taken hold and after several weeks of playing everything in town...again....I found my new little friend, a brand spanking new Collings OM2H. This is just a whole new level in quality and tone.

I wanted a very high end fingerstyle machine, but with some flexibility. The tone is just sweet and pure, it's honest. It is a little stiff sounding now as it is brand new, but with a few months of solid playing time she'll open up a good bit and will only get better with time. The balance of the tone is truly remarkable, there really is a huge difference. A/B'd with my Taylor is like night and day. Two completely different sounds. The Taylor (cedar/rosewood 714) is very modern sounding, shallow in the mids, heavy bass and heavy trebles but very round and warm with tons of overtones jumping all over the place. The Collings is just a simpler sound, vintage and focused more on the fundamental. The overtones are there, but they play around in the background. Again it's the balance that just strikes you. I don't know how to explain it.

Fit and finish is perfection, amazing attention to detail, everything is absolutely immaculate, inside and out. Me happy.

Gresh

 

[red5]

I find with acoustics, when shopping for a high end model, it is important to get one that has a sound that suits your style, even more so than electrics because you can tweak amp settings to do what you want to do.

I heard someone playing a Taylor at my old school. It sounded great! I told him he had a great tone and he said "thanks, you can play if you want!" But it just did not work for me.

 

[Gresh]

Taylors have their own modern-ish thing going on, same with Breedlove for the most part. Even if you play many Taylors of the same model and wood combination, you'll find that they sound pretty different. The smaller companies take more time in dialing in each top by adjusting bracing and tap tuning the tops, Taylor just relies more on using quality woods and sort of lets it come out in the wash. My experience has been that you need to play a ton of guitars and constantly compare them cause they're all gonna sound a little different, even with the boutique guys.

The Collings is completely the opposite direction from my taylor and that's what I like about it. They both sound great to me, and they each have their own thing going on with their own voice. For me, I've yet to play a martin that I felt was worth buying, but I'm sure there are some great ones out there...and maybe I'm just not into the way Martin dials in their guitars.

 

[Flobanez]

Congrats on your Collings OM2H.

 

[red5]

Breedloves have a lot of bass to them. Part of the reason is they shove a pole attached to the back of the guitar which somehow boosts up bass.

 

[JESTER700]

Actually, the "pole" attaches from the block at the end pin to a block that is attached to the bridge. This allows the top to not be as heavy - it needn't support all the string tension - and vibrate more freely. It should also avoid the top "belly & hump" problems down the road.

Although I only have an imported Breedlove, it's constructed this way and it sounds great.

More info on that bridge truss here:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for:_Bridges/JLD_Bridge_Doctor.html

BTW, congrats on the Collings!