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goodbyebluesky
Published on 04/16/08 at 08:45
The Martin DCX1-E is a smaller bodied acoustic guitar made with mostly composite materials. The top is solid sitka spruce, but the back and sides are a high-pressure laminate or "HPL" with a textured mahogany appearance, the neck is made of "stratabond" which is a fancy way of saying they glued up a bunch of scrap and milled a neck out of it, and the fingerboard is made of something called "black micarta". I have not a clue what that is or if any tree was used for its creation. Even the face of the headstock is some synthetic veneer. This guitar has 20 frets, 14 of which are easily accesible by the cutaway.
It features a Fishman Classic 4 pickup/preamp. I noticed the no-frills approach to this guitar, with it having no inlays, no binding, and a simple rosette. Martin cut all kinds of corners to keep this guitar under 700.00 I guess.
UTILIZATION
The neck had a nice feel to it, a smooth finish (if you could call it that) that allowed for easy movement up and down the neck. The cutaway is convenient for playing higher than a standard acoustic would allow. The body seemed fairly thin to me, compared to my 1970's Martin Sigma, and it was quite comfortable to play sitting down, or standing up.
I was impressed with the sound as I played it, to the point that it made me scratch my head wondering how they can make a guitar sound so typically "martin-esque" when most of it is not even WOOD!
SOUNDS
To be honest, I kinda want to hate this guitar. The materials in it are fairly untested and unfamiliar to me so I don't know how well they will hold up compared to more expensive Martin models that are, umm.... actually made with wood. But I do like its sound. Though not spectacular by any means, it is fairly warm and full, and by all counts very sweet and mellow sounding. It seemed to lack a bit of volume and projection since its got less cavity size than most guitars. Though there are exceptions; my ears usually don't have much patience for most guitars in the $500 range, or even <$1000 range for Martin. So I was suprised when I didn't want to put this guitar down. I could have sat and played it all day because whether it was chords, or single note runs, or graceful fingerpicking there was a sweetness of tone shining through. I genuinely enjoyed this guitar.
OVERALL OPINION
It seems like with all the composite materials Martin could make this guitar a bit cheaper- like maybe $500.00. And then it would be worth snapping up. Based on sound and features alone, I guess its a $700 guitar but something about forking over that kind of money for so much plastic and so little wood leaves me queasy. It won't sweeten over time like a typical guitar, and who knows how fragile these synthetic or composite materials are through climate changes.
It features a Fishman Classic 4 pickup/preamp. I noticed the no-frills approach to this guitar, with it having no inlays, no binding, and a simple rosette. Martin cut all kinds of corners to keep this guitar under 700.00 I guess.
UTILIZATION
The neck had a nice feel to it, a smooth finish (if you could call it that) that allowed for easy movement up and down the neck. The cutaway is convenient for playing higher than a standard acoustic would allow. The body seemed fairly thin to me, compared to my 1970's Martin Sigma, and it was quite comfortable to play sitting down, or standing up.
I was impressed with the sound as I played it, to the point that it made me scratch my head wondering how they can make a guitar sound so typically "martin-esque" when most of it is not even WOOD!
SOUNDS
To be honest, I kinda want to hate this guitar. The materials in it are fairly untested and unfamiliar to me so I don't know how well they will hold up compared to more expensive Martin models that are, umm.... actually made with wood. But I do like its sound. Though not spectacular by any means, it is fairly warm and full, and by all counts very sweet and mellow sounding. It seemed to lack a bit of volume and projection since its got less cavity size than most guitars. Though there are exceptions; my ears usually don't have much patience for most guitars in the $500 range, or even <$1000 range for Martin. So I was suprised when I didn't want to put this guitar down. I could have sat and played it all day because whether it was chords, or single note runs, or graceful fingerpicking there was a sweetness of tone shining through. I genuinely enjoyed this guitar.
OVERALL OPINION
It seems like with all the composite materials Martin could make this guitar a bit cheaper- like maybe $500.00. And then it would be worth snapping up. Based on sound and features alone, I guess its a $700 guitar but something about forking over that kind of money for so much plastic and so little wood leaves me queasy. It won't sweeten over time like a typical guitar, and who knows how fragile these synthetic or composite materials are through climate changes.