Larry Mal

Yes, I've shimmed my ES-330 quite a bit. It's easy to do and it really helps with the bridge pickup. No reason not to spend the $20: https://www.lollarguitars.com/accessories/shim-pack-for-dogear

I had a 339 in my possession for a bit, my friend wanted to sell it to me so I auditioned it for a few weeks. I couldn't get along with it at all. I found it totally uninspiring. Now, anyone else might feel differently, of course, but I will echo what I read here, the only reason for a 339 that I can see is that it's physically smaller than the 335 classic shape. It doesn't bring anything sonically to the table. I never did an A/B test, but I feel that the 339 doesn't really bring anything new to the table.

It's worth around 2,000- 2,200.

Well, they are doubling the size of the Bozeman factory, so that should indicate some confidence. I also notice in an article that Cesar from Gibson (forget the gentleman's last name) said that they had a great year all around, which would make sense. Also let's bear in mind that Gibson's financial problems were not due to the core guitar business being bad- and certainly not because of the greatly overhyped "quality control"- but only because they stupidly invested in peripheral businesses that failed to make money and in fact lost an incredible amount. Gibson as a guitar company is doing just fine.

My first good acoustic was a Martin D-1, and I will always have that one. It's living in Nashville tuning now. When I started up with getting acoustics again, I got a Martin 00-17s, it had some quality control issues with it. I later got an 000-18, before the reimagined series, and it was underwhelming to me. I traded it for a J-45. I had also arranged to get a Dove in trade and a J-35, so I was finally starting to realize how great Gibsons were. When I wanted to break away from the Gibson sound, I read about the J-60, and realized that it was basically a Martin D-28 but didn't command the price tag. So now that's my rosewood dreadnaught and I don't see much need for the D-28. Not sure it would be any better, really. Later on when I wanted a full sized mahogany dread, I looked into a Guild D-40. I found one of those with an Adirondack top and immediately figured it would be about as good as the Martin D-18 it is supposed to compete with. I put that to test recently, someone offered me a trade for a D-18 and I went to the store and played one for a while to see if it would offer anything the D-40 didn't. Not much, is what I concluded. But I still like Martin, and I would like one of the OM models.

Necro thread, but the only of those three I own is a Dove. It was actually my first Gibson acoustic, I didn't quite know what to make of it for a while. It certainly was not like what my acoustics had been up to that point. Maybe I'll go play it today.

I have removed the under saddle pickup from eight Gibson acoustics so far. If I get another one I'll do the same. In some cases, it made a tremendous difference to the sound of the guitar. My J-45 is one... it opened right up. On other guitars, it didn't make barely any difference at all. I make no prediction what will happen with yours just because it's a J-45. The action will get lower, and if this is still the stock Gibson setup then you'll probably be happier. If the action is already lowered, you can get a wooden shim from any arts and crafts store for next to nothing, and put that in. Better yet, now would be the time to get a new bone saddle and do it all right.

Yeah, they are getting rare, huh? Probably a good sign that the people that have them don't want to let them go. The prices are going up, also.

Welcome to the forum! I would not make any strong effort towards that guitar, personally.

I was going to say that this was just what we might call a Dove "Standard", however those specs have a scale length of 25.75" which I think might be a misprint and they wanted to put down 25.5". Regardless, it looks just like my Dove from the early 2000s. An all around great guitar, I got mine on trade and would not easily be able to talk about what is and isn't a good price.

I have in my possession a 2019 Dot and a 2018 Traditional. Both are great guitars, one has to be sold. I was at first going to keep the Trad, but it has a thicker neck and I think I prefer the playability of the Dot. I do not detect any compromise in quality between the two guitars, either would be a blessing. Nashville is making great 335s based on what I can see. It's lighter and more resonant than the earlier one. Frankly I might put them both up on Craigslist and sell whichever one goes first. That's how little difference in quality there is.

Yeah, I would agree. Mine is a 2019 Dot, and it's... just amazing. One of those guitars where you think, man, why didn't I just do this to start with all those years ago.

I have an ES-335 being delivered to me today also. Let's compare notes!

I did end up getting the "L" years ago:

The value of them can be a little all over the place, since they made the J-100 over the years with a wide variety of woods. I paid about $1k for my J-100 which has bubinga. The maple ones usually go for more than that, I guess folks that can't shell out for the J-200 will pay around $1500 for the maple. The mahogany ones seem to live in between those, and the rosewood I have no idea. I'd guess it would sell for around $1400-1600.

Walnut is an absolutely wonderful wood. I would make that trade.

Bitte schön- my guitar has something of a blemish on the top that is apparently not seen in pictures but is immediately visible when you look at it directly. That probably helped me win it on eBay. Also, I will imagine that you are seeing the prices that folks are asking more than what they are selling for to a degree. Gibson does wonderful with rosewood- this J60 inspired me to get a 12 fret L-00 in rosewood, which is truly wonderful. Also I have a J-29 which is sort of an advanced braced rosewood J45, and I would have more if I hadn't run out of money!

Good point- I should have been more clear that I was comparing the recent era J-45 Standards and that last run of J-35s, the ones with the tiger stripe pick guard, not the most current one.

Leo, I think the strongest advice is for you to invest in a quality in case hygrometer, so you can keep an eye on the humidity level of the guitar. Any dehumidifier will work, but they all need monitoring in case they become saturated and quit working or even worse, leak. So, do you typically need air conditioning? It gets very humid where I live in the States during summer, but it is also so hot that we have to run air conditioners, an essential component of which is the removal of the excess humidity (that's the "conditioning"). I wonder if maybe something like a window unit air conditioner might work, of course, I have no idea what kind of place you have. But unlike a lot of things, those are kind of set and forget.

Hard to say... I have a Dove, and like the maple there. It's a wonderful wood and I would buy other maple bodied guitars (including a J200 if I could afford it). I don't know that it would be the first thing I would recommend to someone, though. If you are used to rosewood and mahogany, well... maple isn't that. The bass on maple seems to be pretty restrained, no boom to it... the bass is there, just not as loud as on other guitars. So it's not like maple doesn't put the frequencies out there (I am basing this off my only maple guitar ever, the Dove). It's nice in a way, I use my Dove in open C, and the low C is actually usable there and not flabby or pointless like it has been on some of my other guitars. Sometimes it sounds like a piano or an organ to me. Again, though, if you think you are getting a Martin bluegrass machine you are absolutely not getting that. It's also not a particularly loud guitar, despite the pretty big size. I don't have a J200, but I have a J100, with bubinga wood. A nice guitar. Sounds good, and I do love the form factor of the super jumbo. I imagine that a lot of people might not. If I had the money, I would buy a J200, based on my experience with the Dove and the J200, I'll say that. Even sight unseen, I would order one... I guess I feel I know enough to make that decision.

Yes, they do have different bracing than the J-45 does. It's what Gibson calls the "advanced" bracing, like you would see on an Advanced Jumbo, it's moved forward a bit and somewhat lighter in construction as well. The J-29 also had the same construction, so you can think of the J-29 as a short scale Advanced Jumbo, and the J-35 as the mahogany equivalent. I like my J-35, and it is an excellent guitar for recording. It has a bright and metallic sound to it, I always tell people that "you can really hear the string and not the wood". It sounds bad to talk about it like that, but microphones just love it, and it sits well in a busy mix. It's also pretty loud. But it does not have the versatility that the J-45 has, it's a bit more of a one trick pony. It doesn't have that soft, dark and woody sound that you can find with the J-45. I like it with a pick, don't like it much for finger style, and for some reason it absolutely sucks in alternate and dropped tunings- go figure. I have a J-29 also and it shines in open C and C-G-C-F-C-E tuning, whereas the J-35 was awful in those and the only difference is the body wood. A nice alternative and a great guitar, but not the first one I would recommend.

So, they made them in two waves, an earlier 90s run and a later reissue. The most common is with rosewood back and sides, but I've heard of walnut and other woods. Those are rare. I have one of the 90's versions with the rosewood back and sides. Now, it's clearly designed to be a Gibson version of the HD28, and that's why I bought mine- because I love Gibson guitars and because the J60 is less known than a lot of their others and you can find them pretty reasonably priced sometimes. I got mine for a little more than $1k, if I really correctly. I don't know if it sounds exactly like an HD-28, but what I can tell you is that it sounds incredible. I mean, just amazing. It's loud and booming, unlike your typical Gibson and more on the Martin side of things, but it still has Gibson sweetness to it, it's powerful, clear, and has an incredible dynamic range. I suppose that I would still like to own a Martin HD-28, if I had the money, but I can tell you that I don't feel any kind of urgency about it and while it might sound a little different, I can't imagine how it- or really, any acoustic guitar- could sound much "better".

I'll agree about the J-45. I have nine Gibson acoustics, all are wonderful... but as soon as I strummed my J-45 I was like, sure. If this was my only guitar that would be OK.

Well, you have an HD 28, so you have the long scale/rosewood/dread trifecta there. We'll leave aside the Martin vs. Gibson inherent sound for now, which is not inconsiderable. A Hummingbird is short scale/mahogany/dread. So, out of the three factors, two are different. A J-45 is short scale/mahogany/jumbo, so a difference of 2.5 factors, maybe. An SJ200 is long scale/maple/super jumbo, so a difference of two factors. An L-00 is short scale/mahogany/L-00 shaped, so a difference of all three factors. And so on. Maybe you can look at it like that. Of course, a Martin D28 is designed to be a loud instrument that can dominate other instruments in particular settings, of course it can do a lot more than that. A Gibson J45 is not designed to do that, so it will be quieter, less resonant (still pretty resonant) and have a sweeter sound. Be aware it might take you a little while to acclimate to the strengths of the Gibson vs. the Martin- the Martin is designed to overwhelm and blow things away. It took me a while to listen to the sound of a Gibson as opposed to the volume of Martin guitars- nothing wrong with Martins, of course. But the ear tends to immediately associate louder things with sounding "better", and it took me a while to unlearn that. My own advice is that Gibson has a few absolutely legendary guitars- the L-00, the J-45 (which is a J-50), the Hummingbird and the SJ-200. They also have a great amount of other very wonderful guitars, but if you don't know what you want, don't overthink it- just get one of the legends because they are legends for a reason. Good luck! Hope this helps.