From the Dungeon            Allan Copland            21 November 2007.

A Chinese 'MARTIN Dreadnaught.'

Sandra asked what I'd like for my Christmas.  I idly batted an idea at her..... how about a new Rosewood bodied Acoustic guitar to replace the one I had stolen from me.  OK she said.   I almost fell off my chair!  So that's how I came to order a Vintage V1500N acoustic guitar.

(Click for large image)

The V1500N.    The VEC1500N is a similar instrument, but with a single cutaway.

I placed the order and waited for it to arrive. Delivery was very speedy.   It was well packaged in the customary foam bag, inside a cardboard carton and that was placed in a gynormous cardboard box with bubblewrap.  I checked the invoice... taped to the outside of the box. Everything was fine so I opened the large carton and extracted the guitar.  Opening the inner carton, I realised that something was wrong. Right invoice... wrong guitar. It wasn't the one I ordered., the Vintage V1500N. Kokups happen! It was the VEC1500N, a single cutaway variant with a pickup and EQ.  I checked it out anyway... as you do.

Build quality..... superb.   I had to keep looking at it.  Really. It really was beautifully made.  Absolutely flawless matt varnish finish.  Real abalone, Real wood bindings ...flamed maple (no plastic), Genuine (solid... not laminated) Indian rosewood sides and back. Solid German spruce top.  Good quality bracing, Indian rosewood fingerboard and bridge. Really good timbers. Fancy Abalone fretboard inlays. Flamed maple neck bindings. Absolutely flawless. Looked just like bare wood but with the smoothness of a varnished finish. 

I tuned it to concert pitch using my Middle A test tone on my little practice amp. I only used the amp as a tone reference.  Didn't connect the guitar..  That's when I noticed a problem.  BUT... more of that later.

In short, the Chinese took a top of the range Martin and 'cloned' it using the best materials. 

Tone....... Absolutely superb.  Blows away my Gibson MK-35 in an A/B test.  No contest.  I'm NOT joking.  Louder, cleaner, crisper. Better in almost every way.  Much more punch but with real finesse.  Beautiful tonewoods.. Neat and professional construction... No visible glue and beautiful workmanship.  I dropped a webcam inside for a better look.  Machine Heads.... Grovers... top notch. Smooth as butter. Intonation. near the nut end..... beautiful. Lots of sustain, nothing at all like my mahogany bodied Gibson. This particular guitar had a compensated (stepped) bridge.  The neck is worthy of note. It's a one piece mahogany neck with a  glued-on heel ... exactly like my Gibson.   Martin style truss-rod. Adjusted from the soundhole end. Dead straight neck.  Very comfortable neck profile and string spacing.  Remember that many of the expensive acoustics have spliced peghead joints. This one doesn't.

Now the downside.
Neck rake angle  ZERO... set absolutely flat.    Action.... you'd have to be a gorilla to play this one.  Reminds me of a a really lousy Guild I tried many years ago.  That was the last Guild I ever played.  Bad action tends to do that to people.  Sticks in your mind and doesn't go away.

The really bad news.

Because of the slim bridge with it's low saddle and the lack of neck rake, no real adjustment of the action is possible except upwards.  One could possibly skim a very little off the bottom of the bridge saddle, but that's it. No more than that is possible. 

The ONLY way to fix a guitar like this is to have it disassembled and the neck re-set  with a suitable degree of rake.   The neck rake angle is set during manufacture, either by a skilled luthier who 'eyeballs' and fits the neck by removing small amounts of wood from the joint, usually with the help of a long 'straight-edge' placed on the bridge, to gauge the rake angle. In some factory guitars, small tapered wooden shims are used, also using a straight-edge to test the degree of rake.  Both methods can produce an excellent instrument.  A case of skill versus production engineering.  It's so fundamental that there's NO excuse for getting this wrong.

Nut... slots sawn to the correct width ... BUT string height set way too high. Some careful work with suitable files to lower the strings to a more appropriate height would be in order (provided you are a 'competent person').  Placing a a capo on the first fret and things improved things greatly for the first few frets.  Easy to fix ... but why should I  need to?

So  there you have it. the best acoustic quitar I've ever had my hands on, tone wise,  but because of the way it was assembled, useless to me, and I suspect most other potential purchasers.  This sort of thing is really sad.  Had the neck been set correctly, I'd have been more than delighted to trade my much loved Gibson MK-35 for it, because *potentially* it's a FAR better instrument.  Hell, I might have thrown in Sandra too!  It's gone straight back to the suppliers.
I'm broken hearted about this because I'd have been utterly delighted to have kept it had it been possible to set the action to my liking.

I don't at all mind doing my own guitar setup but with this one, there's nothing TO set up.  Re-setting a neck is a very major job.  They've produced an absolutely top notch instrument costing  £200-£300 , that could easily hold it's own with the very best of them .... and then 'shot themselves in the foot' with the most basic mistake possible.  I'm broken hearted.   I'd have happily swapped it for my Gibson MK-35 had the action been better, or even if it could have have been adjusted to my liking.  Opinions vary of course about the ideal height for guitar strings above the fingerboard but a good compromise seems to be 3mm on the bass side and 2.0-2.5mm on the treble side at the twelfth fret.  It's normal that  the user has the option to  'tweak' the action.  It's important for users that these adjustments can be made, but in the case of this guitar, with it's neck rake angle problem. no such adjustment is possible.  The only option is if you wanted to raise the already high action even further.

When I talked with someone from the distributor, I was told that "not all of them are like that, some have a low action". 

That's the sort of variance you can expect if you buy a Vintage brand acoustic guitar 'off the shelf'.  Caveat Emptor!

Allan Copland.

Nov 2007.