Martin DM12

[albertjohn]

I fear I may be on the turn.

 

I own a Takamine (see below) and I'm very happy with it. It's the 3rd 12er I have owned and it has a lovely pure clean maple tone if a little lacking in the bass dept. Solid spruce top and lam maple sides. Great on board electronics and the piano black colour is very striking. A very well built, great sounding and easy to play guitar.

 

I stumbled across a Martin DM12 yesterday. It's a 2001 model and very clean. 1 or 2 dings but nothing to really frighten anyone.

 

After noodling around on it for 5 mins I concluded that this was a fabulous instrument. From what I can gather it is a solid spruce top and lam mahogany (or something similar) back and sides. Lovely action, great neck, intonation very precise. The tone is, unsurprisingly, very different to the sparkly shimmer of the Tak. Darker, much more bass but clean (not muddy despite strings which looked and felt pre-war). Mids and highs clean and uncomplicated. Much richer - a chocolate tone. I loved it.

 

Satin finish (wouldn't be my first choice) which suits this guitar.Thinking of offering the Tak in PX.

 

On the downside, the saddle has no meat left in it at all which might indicate a problem with the neck? Having said that, the action is very low but no buzzing. A very easy player. No electronics but the good Doctor will soon fix that.

 

Does anyone here own or have any views on the Martin?

 

I'd appreciate any comments.

 

Cheers

[ryanfender]

Great guitars but I have only played a few that I liked from a tone perspective. The one Martin that is consistently amazing is the D-18GE. The energy in those guitars just jumps out. I would love to own one. Other than the D-18GE, there have only been a few I enjoyed. However, they are well made guitars. They do tend to need neck resets much more quickly than other brands. I have read where some needed reset in less than 10 years. Also, note that lower end Martins use a mortise tenon neck joint rather than a dovetail. Martin usually covers resets under warranty from what I hear usually early ones.