SJ200, Dove or Hummingbird?

[rmfinn68]

My Dove is my favorite guitar. It plays like an electric, looks gorgeous, and has a huge tone/ volume.

[Paul14]

Oh good, another new thread.

[fortyearspickn]

5 hours ago, rmfinn68 said:

My Dove is my favorite guitar. It plays like an electric, looks gorgeous, and has a huge tone/ volume.

Voting Ended ...  approximately 12 years ago.

[ALD323]

#1 ...Hummingbird Standard ...(number one by a mile in my view)

#2 ...SJ-200

#3 ...Dove

[Paul14]

48 minutes ago, ALD323 said:

#1 ...Hummingbird Standard ...(number one by a mile in my view)

#2 ...SJ-200

#3 ...Dove

Whichever one I’m playing at the time.

[Brucebubs]

I became a 1st time Gibson owner last year when my Historic 1957 SJ-200 finally arrived.

Love it,  guess the bug has bitten,  now I'd really like to try a Hummingbird and Dove too.

 

[E-minor7]

22 minutes ago, Brucebubs said:

Love it,  guess the bug has bitten,  now I'd really like to try a Hummingbird and Dove too.

Not hard to understand. Two highly different guitars, , , , 3 including you Jumbo. I don't have a 200, but enjoy my Dove and Birds with unweakened strength. Eehh, the 45s too. . 

[Jinder]

Holy twelve year old necro-thread, Batman!

Funny to read this so many years later. Still have an SJ200, Dove and Hummingbird by my side, although not the ones that I had many years ago...these are the keepers. 

[Sgt. Pepper]

15 minutes ago, Jinder said:

Holy twelve year old necro-thread, Batman!

Funny to read this so many years later. Still have an SJ200, Dove and Hummingbird by my side, although not the ones that I had many years ago...these are the keepers. 

It never ends, every day a thread is awakened from the Crypt Keeper.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Sgt. Pepper

[MissouriPicker]

I’m fortunate enough to own all three.  Don’t think one necessarily has anything over the other two.  If I was forced to pick just one, I’d probably go with “the bird.”  Not because it’s better, but because it was the “holy grail guitar” when I was a teenager and I always wanted one.  Eventually, I realized that there was no real “holy grail,” but instead a bunch of awesome guitars that appealed to me.  One can spend himself into the poor house looking for “the holy grail.”

[kidblast]

oh, thread resurrection day..  And it's not even holy week yet!!!
 

any else one thinking we've run out of things to talk about?

hey we've not had a good bridge pin rock fight in a while... anyone game?

[DanvillRob]

Easy choice for me.   I love the sound of a J-200...but it's simply too big for me, (I keep thinking I look like Little Jimmy Dickens when I play one).   I have both Doves and Hummingbirds..... The Dove would be my choice, for sure.

[Sgt. Pepper]

On 3/21/2021 at 8:12 PM, Sgt. Pepper said:

It never ends, every day a thread is awakened from the Crypt Keeper.

I do love a sad emoji. Thanks to who keeps doing to me and all the other members. Just type a comment to me, I am a big boy and can handle more than just a dumb face attached to my post. Explain why its sad or are words hard for you. This is not FB. I'm not here for the likes.

Countdown to another sad emoji. Emoji is a funny looking word.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Sgt. Pepper

[Al Pike]

On 3/16/2009 at 7:11 AM, mikelewis said:

I voted for the Hummingbird. I had a Dove (since been sold), it was a great guitar but I had to scale down and the Dove was not being played regularly. In general I prefer mahogany or rosewood over maple, while the Dove had thunderous and sweet tones, I found the tone a little bit invisible for my taste. I should also add that my Hummingbird is a rare long-scale model - not sure how this improves the tone over a regular short-scale Bird, but it gave me a like-baseline to compare the Bird and Dove.

I have yet to play a dove but I have played hummingbirds. I played a hummingbird in a shop in Italy that was memorable. Had we not blown such a wad on the vacation it would now be mine. Two things I remember most about Salerno, St. Matthew’s remains in the marbled and fresco’d basement crypt of an ancient church and that particular hummingbird.

[Jinder]

4 minutes ago, Al Pike said:

I have yet to play a dove but I have played hummingbirds. I played a hummingbird in a shop in Italy that was memorable. Had we not blown such a wad on the vacation it would now be mine. Two things I remember most about Salerno, St. Matthew’s remains in the marbled and fresco’d basement crypt of an ancient church and that particular hummingbird.

Al, you owe it to yourself to try a Dove. I swear my ‘95 is one of the best recording guitars I’ve ever played. Goes down to tape like butter on hot toast!

[Violeiro]

My preference is Bird then J45

[Al Pike]

1 minute ago, Jinder said:

Al, you owe it to yourself to try a Dove. I swear my ‘95 is one of the best recording guitars I’ve ever played. Goes down to tape like butter on hot toast!

I will certainly try. They don’t show up often. There was one hanging high up years ago at GC. I should have asked them to bring it down. 

[DanvillRob]

25 minutes ago, Al Pike said:

I will certainly try. They don’t show up often. There was one hanging high up years ago at GC. I should have asked them to bring it down. 

Al, Funny how I ended up with my first Dove.   I worked in a music store back in the 60o's.   We got in a Hummingbird...and I'd play it whenever there were no customers in the store.....and fell in love with it!    Well, years later, when we were first married, I told my wife this story.....so when we were poor as church mice, she gathered up enough money to buy me a guitar.   She knew  it had to be a Gibson, and she knew it was some kind of bird model.   She went to a place called Music Unlimited.... and told them what she wanted.....and they sold her a Dove.   Maple, not Mahogany; Long scale, not short scale..... but I loved it.... still my favorite guitar....means so much that she sacrificed to buy it for me.

[Larry Mal]

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. 

[Dave F]

I've had four SJ200's, two Hummingbirds and one Dove (DIF).

I still have the Dove.

[J185cat]

I will throw in from left field my AJ.  Owned it since 2003 and it still brings a giant smile to my face every time I play it.  If restricted to the three listed, I would say Hbird with the qualifier that I have never played a Dove.  A problem I need to correct.  Hbird are just hard to walk away from.

[Twang Gang]

I thought I'd found my perfect acoustic when I first got an SJ-200, but the love affair didn't last long.  The jumbo size wasn't all that comfortable, and the one I got turned out to be a quiet giant (sounded great plugged in though).  I traded it toward a Collings dread which is the best sounding guitar I own.

In the interim I also got a Hummingbird and while it does not have the volume of the Collings, the shorter scale and the warm tone of the mahogany make it my favorite player, so I guess on the deserted island I would have my Hummingbird.  Have not played a Dove though so can't rule that out, but they are hard to come by and I'm not spending that kind of dough without playing it first.

[BoSoxBiker]

1: Hummingbird - 2: SJ-200 - #3 SJ-200 Rosewood B&S.  The Hummingbird was my entry into the Gibson world of Acoustics. It is still my favorite. Second choice varies. This very moment, it's the RW SJ-200. That's mostly because it's out of the case on a stand and staring me down.

There will be a 4th Gibbo. The list is narrowed down to a Maple B&S 2014-ish HB, a Dove or a used Sheryl Crowe SJ from that 2013-2014 era. I've yet to play a Dove. It's been just going on videos. If I found a good, solid and not over-baked recording of a Love Dove that could make up my mind, I might be on it like I was the RW SJ-200 last year. I've not played a Sheryl Crowe nor the Maple Hummingbird either. doh!!!

Oh, and we should probably welcome the new forum dweller to the forum instead of offering ridcule and ire for a very forgivable social faux paus. So, welcome aboard RMFinn68!  🙂

[DanvillRob]

2 hours ago, BoSoxBiker said:

 If I found a good, solid and not over-baked recording of a Love Dove that could make up my mind,

🙂

Not sure if this is what you're looking for.... just me singing (I apologize) and my DIF.

I have to admit, my Dove doesn't sound as good....but it sounds very good for a 1979 model.

I kinda like the long scale, it's on my Dove, DIF and J-50.

Short scale on my 'Bird and 'Bird 12-String.... I can actually feel the difference in my arms.

Anyway, give a listen....no electronics other than my iPhone.

 

[BoSoxBiker]

10 hours ago, DanvillRob said:

Not sure if this is what you're looking for.... just me singing (I apologize) and my DIF.

I have to admit, my Dove doesn't sound as good....but it sounds very good for a 1979 model.

I kinda like the long scale, it's on my Dove, DIF and J-50.

Short scale on my 'Bird and 'Bird 12-String.... I can actually feel the difference in my arms.

Anyway, give a listen....no electronics other than my iPhone.

 

Thanks, DanvillRob. That is a nice sounding guitar. Quite a looker, too.

The guitar I'm trying to find a good clean recording of is the Artist Series Frank Hannon Love Dove. The baked top draws me to this one instead of the standard issue. Finding a video with clean audio is proving difficult. The same two sources I found for my Historic Collection SJ-200 RW Pre-War videos do have the Love Dove covered, but one recording sounds like the mic pre is being blown out and the other has a lot of natural compression, even by their standards. Not natural sounding, to say the least. The hunt will continue. I check every couple of months.