So I wanted a mahogany guitar for a different, mellower sound to my spruce-topped Martin. I also wanted a 12 fret-to-the-body for open tunings and was thinking of the Martin offering, but at this price I had to try it. The top looked a little odd the the broad dark stripes running through the brown but I could live with that. The setup out of the box was pretty good, action spot on and just a teeny bit sharp at the 12th on the top 3 strings, but you can get away with it. Pickup system is okay though doesn't compare to the K&K or Baggs offerings (at this money I wouldn't expect it to). Tuners are not great quality but they work and tuning is stable. It is a well made guitar.
The sound. Now fingerpicked in open tuning it sounds really lovely, very mellow and round compared to a spruce but with lots of sustain and resonance with good dynamics.
However as soon as I played with a capo, it loses most of the sustain and resonance and sounds like a cheap guitar! Nothing wrong with the capo as its fine on my other guitars. The same with barre chords up the neck, fairly dead sounding. The resonance and sustain lives in the open strings.
Anyway its a keeper for me, just because it sounds lovely fingerpicked in open D and I will use it exclusively for that. For other styles I would probably give it a miss.
