Re: Quality control on new guitars

Augustus wrote:
My wife is ready to upgrade to a midrange acoustic instrument now
after 2 years with her Fender Kingman Nat.....we spent the an entire
day last weekend at 3 shops trying out a variety of Breedloves,
Seagulls, Ibanez and other assorted brands in the $1200-1600 range.
What astonished both of us was how many of these instruments had
intonation issues brand new. We had the techs in all three shops
check at least one guitar that was a likely candidate but seemed
"off" to her. The three guitars she liked all required more than just
a setup, and we were told that 2 should have been caught at the
factory and would require extensive work to correct intonation. Is
this common on todays instruments costing this much? The Takimine
guitars were the only ones of the entire group that were consistently
good in this regard. I was surprised.

I would question -
- Strings, new or old?
- Her ability to discern intonation. Did you
measure the intonation with something like a strobe tuner?
- How was the instrument tuned in the first place?
- Once tuned, what did she play/do that made her feel
like it was "off"?
- What are the measurements of 12th fret action
open and while capo'd at first fret? What if 1st
fret clearance while fretted at 3rd? What is truss
rod relief? Neck angle? Saddle angle? Amount of
saddle proud from the bridge?
- The "tech" simply looking at a guitar and
knowing that it would need whatever you're
calling "extensive work". Without new strings
and an appropriate setup, I'd suggest the sales
person (ahem, tech) wouldn't have any idea what
kind of work is needed.


Lumpy

In Your Ears for 40 Something Years
www.LumpyMusic.com


Lumpy

In Your Ears for 40 Something Years
www.LumpyMusic.com



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Relevant Pages

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