Jerry K

D-28s are good for some things like bluegrass. IMO they are not as good an all round, Swiss Army knife of a guitar as a D-18. And J-45's are even better all round than D-18s!

Sometimes I like a five course dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Sometimes a couple tacos and a pint of Negra Modelo will do.

That Dylan J-45 is really banged up and scarred but is actually a pretty great sounding guitar.

I understand there are narrow side canyons and cavern-like spots where playing would probably be like Paul Horn in the Taj Mahal. It would be worth trashing a baby taylor (though not a Gibson!) just to play for a little while in such a place. I don't know if these raft trips really get into any side explorations... On the other side yeah it might be quite a drag to be on a long trip like that and be with somebody who brought a loud instrument but sucks on it!

I think 'minty used' is a useful description, somewhat like 'used, very good' in the book trade. For me the minty used Gibson acoustic is a kind of beautiful ideal: the guitar is already played in a bit and has opened up, the person was obsessive or very careful and clean so that it looks like a new guitar, and the price is a whacking great amount below what an excellent discount on a new guitar would be. Two or three of my Gibson acoustics purchases were like that. There are a lot of very nice Bozeman made, 'Ferguson era' Gibson acoustics floating around in just such a condition because guitar buyers are fickle and often sell up after a year or two in order to fund the next 'grail'.

Yeah. You know, thinking about it, I bet the acoustics in some spots deep in the canyon must be incredible. Might be worth it to bang up a baby taylor or something just to have a real six string guitar to play in some of those spots. A flute or recorder would probably reverberate for ages in some places down there.

Sounds like a job for a uke. Small enough to fit in your waterproof duffel bags.

Has nothing to do with Ren. The company has always changed specs frequently. Most guitar manufacturers do and have a standard disclaimer about changing specs without notice. The standards aren't braced like AJ's. I don't think it is correct to say most are braced like AJ's.

I am not sure what kind of 'advantage' you are suggesting. I suspect the company is able to track dealers and serial numbers pretty effectively and it is unlikely you would be able to get warranty service by sending in a card given to you mistakenly or using the web interface under your circs. Trying to obtain 'advantages' to which one is not actually entitled sounds unprincipled and unworthy to me.

It can be argued that the shorter fretboard allows the top to vibrate more freely, because less of it is glued to the fretboard. That's why Gibson at various times had elevated fretboards.

None of the stuff in the case pocket matters much. To register for warranty: Gibson warranty registration

I took part in a similar test that Rar ran at one of the homecomings where he played several guitars behind a curtain. Of course none of us could correctly identify the guitars. However I think this kind of test misses the point. Our memory of tone is somewhat tenuous. It's nearly impossible to compare more than two guitars at a time because by the time you get to the third one, your recollection of the first is already becoming compromised. And if the comparands are represented by recordings, the difficulties are multiplied. And yet it seems to me that none of this accurately represents what we do when we try guitars. If, for example, I sit down in the back room at Music Villa and Paul pulls out a 50's J-50 that just arrived, and I play it side by side with a recent J-45, I know very darn well that there is a huge difference in the sound of the two! Never mind taking it behind a curtain and trying to distinguish it from 6 others. I don't play that parlor game in real life. But in real life absolutely I can distinguish the sound of two guitars and often I can identify precisely why I prefer one to the other. All of you can do this to some degree, otherwise why are you on a bulletin board for guitar nerds? Any guitar would do if you really cannot tell one from another. Whether you can or cannot, all of you believe you can distinguish the sound one guitar from another, at least when you are playing them side by side.

I have met him on several occasions and consider him a friend. If you had a friend you liked, admired and respected, would you discuss details of why he departed from a previous job on the internet?

Nope.

The J-200 is 17" lower bout. 185 -16", 165 -15". The Emmy Lou model was originally made in a slightly different shape (as were early 165's if I remember right). The WM-00 had a somewhat similar shape, though I guess it had a slightly smaller lower bout. Later both the Emmy and 165 got a shape that looked more like the traditional Gibson jumbo. The current Emmy/165 shape is interesting in that by adjusting the space between sound hole and neck as well as the placement of the bridge, Ren created a 14 fret guitar that has the bridge nearly in the center of a circular lower bout. It's a nice configuration. The 165 maple and J-200 have the same arrangement of maple back and sides and multi-piece maple neck. The 185 has a mahogany neck, which has a mellowing effect. The 165 rosewood model has a mahogany neck like the 185, Since the 165/Emmy are two sizes down from the J-200, comparisons between the two are silly. It's a middle sized guitar with a lower bout similar to a Martin 000 or OM. The two 165 models are different as night and day, despite having the same body shape. Rosewood, mahogany neck and ebony board & bridge vs. Maple, maple and rosewood. I have and like both of them. The rosewood is perhaps better as an all round guitar; strumming, flat picking or fingerpicking. Works for a lot of different kinds of music. The maple in my view is not as good as a strummer but it has extremely clear highs. It's great for leads, fingerpicking and jazz playing. Cowboy chords - go for the rosewood. I have light strings on the rosewood and mediums on the maple. The maple 165 with its relatively fast decay is like a flat top version of a 15-inch maple archtop. I play quite a bit of 4 to the bar type stuff on both 165s.