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Joined:
July 2005
Posts: 55
Location: lewisburg ohio | I just compared my three guitars for sustain,loudness,and in my opinion over all tonal quality. All three have the same adamas strings. here are my results. strumming each guitar,all open strings trying as close as I could using the same amount of pressure with bare skin of my thumb.
sustain#1 Tacoma jumbo koa 10 seconds
#2 Seagull artist cameo flame maple 9 sec.
#3 Ovation custom balladeer 8 sec.
loudness#1 Ovation custom balladeer
#2 Seagull flame maple
#3 Tacoma jumbo koa
tone #1 Tacoma jumbo Koa
#2 tie with Ovation and Seagull
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What really surprised me is that the Tacoma Jumbo was not the loudest. Tone wise the Tacoma has in my opinion the best sound and balanced tone. The Ovation has more of a base to midrange sound and the Seagull has more of a midrange to treble sound whitch is just a matter of taste. just goofing around |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 6192
Location: Phoenix AZ | I would recommend you have someone else play the guitars and you listen from 5 feet away. Might sound different. Most people say Ovations "project" more out front |
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Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | MMmmm. Try listening from the stage, and I think you'll find, at volume, the ovation is superior. And they are distinct instruments, with different personalities. As they say on the adamas website, some find picasso superior and others don't. |
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Joined:
February 2004
Posts: 2487
| Fair enough. Only thing missing is ten people in the room who will all have different opinions. It comes down to personal tastes when guitars are of similiar quality and worthy of an honest sound comparison.
What confuses me greatly are the musicians and traditional guitar lovers who berate these guitars like there is no comparison at all.
Nice test. You sound as though you have done an unbiased test, Just for the heck of it take it the next step and try what these guy's suggested. Have someone else play the same chords for a while going back and forth on each one and see what they sound like from a short distance etc.
I am not familiar so I have to ask.....Is the 1712 a deep bowl O?
Randy |
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Joined:
July 2005
Posts: 55
Location: lewisburg ohio | yes the 1712 is a deep bowl. Ive tried with my son in law struming the guitars while I stood back about 15 feet and the effect was the same. I figured the tacoma would be the loudest being that its a jumbo but the ovation is the loudest and also the more lower tone. Probably because of the bowl depth while the two all wood guitars beat it on sustain. I would assume the all wood guitars reverberate longer because of that fact. Its all a matter of taste. To me they each one have their own distinctive sound and I love them all. |
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Joined:
February 2004
Posts: 2487
| Well done. |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 400
Location: North Texas | I'm not suprised that the Ovation is the loudest, they usually are. You might set up a recording device, several feet away, and play the same 12 bar instrumental with each guitar. That might give you a better representation for comparison. Cheers! |
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Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | It is interesting how in most ways, the person playing a guitar is in the worst possible position to really evaluate its sound. I think that explains the "grass is always greener" phenomenon where the other guy in the guitar store always sounds better than you do.
But issues of tone are so subjective, I don't understand how to evaluate them.
My wife is a serious flute player. With flutes, the tone is all in the headstock (that's the part with the mouth hole). Different metals give you different tones. Generally speaking, silver is brighter, gold is darker. A few years ago, wooden headstocks were all the rage. They produced a smoother, more mellow tone. When we visited the Haynes workshop back in 2000, they had lots of gredanilla blanks, ends waxed to maintain consistent moisture content, stacked and ready to be turned. Today, I don't believe they even offer them anymore.
Times change. Styles change. Tastes change.
The problem that Ovation will always have on this front is that (at least today) our society places a premium on authenticity. My sense is that in some ways we are suffering from technology burnout. So, a guitar built with modern design using modern materials has an inherent disadvantage compared to a guitar built using traditional construction. The very notion of applying modernity to guitars probably strikes some people as misguided.
Consider, for example, the Harley Davidson motorcycle. The only thing they sell is their "mystique" and their "authenticity". By any objective measure (with apologies in advance to any Harley riders) the average Suzuki or Honda is a better motorcyle: Faster, more reliable, more durable, etc. But those considerations are not enough to overcome the authencitity advantage of the Harley (in terms of numbers of units sold in the US).
I believe that this desire for authenticity is applied to different degrees (if at all) to different products. We might want our motorcycles and our guitars to be "old school", but that doesn't mean we don't love our CD's and our iPods. Although even the world of audio is not imune: There are still some audiophiles who insist that vinyl is the superior medium.
I don't have much of a sense about why some items are considered candidates for modern technology while others aren't. My guess is that people look to modern technology for utilitarian objects, but look to autenticity for "recreational" objects. So, the same consumer who insists on cutting edge technology in his (utilitarian) automobile may very well want 1936 technology in his (recreational) motorcycle.
Back to Ovation. I believe that this is the root of the antipathy that some have towards Ovation. Ovation is built on the idea that you can make better acoustic guitars by incorporating more and more technological advancements. Many people probably find that idea completely antithethical to the whole idea of what a "good" guitar should be, without regard to the actual sound produced. The idea of a modern guitar is, in and of itself, an assault on their entire guitar aesthetic.
For me, I'll continue to ride my Suzuki, and play my Adamas.
Cheers!
Jeff |
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 1116
Location: Keller, TX | Originally posted by Omaha:
It is interesting how in most ways, the person playing a guitar is in the worst possible position to really evaluate its sound. I think that explains the "grass is always greener" phenomenon where the other guy in the guitar store always sounds better than you do.
No, usually they sound better because they ARE better! (The player, not the guitar)
:D :eek: :D |
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Joined:
January 2004
Posts: 338
Location: SE Michigan | I would like to see someone who has the resources conduct more such comparisons. The endless arguments about tone go well beyond Ovations. There is constant bickering about bone versus synthetic bridges and nuts, Bridge pin material, adirondack versus sitka spruce, and on and on the debate goes.
I would really be cool if someone like Acoustic Guitar magazine could assemble 10 or 12 mainstream guitars and then do blind "soundtests" with a group of listeners recording thier opinions, then publish the results.
I suspect the reason that such a test has not been conducted (or published) is because there are so many dollars at stake for the companies that produce all of the crap that guitars players purchase to get better sound. |
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comparing my three guitars
