• picky audiofile's choice

  
  As reviewed by Sonya Pasley on 1/29/2013

  The search began for the perfect guitar: spruce top, rosewood sides/back, amazing pickup and bang for the buck. I have been playing guitars and around them used through sound systems in LIVE venues and church settings since 1980. Martin, though making an amazing acoustic guitar, struggled with the dreadnought having a standing wave of the open D string when left unmuted during live situations, would cause HUGE feedback problems for the soundman and caused me to be hesitant to purchase a dreadnought style. So my search began to lean towards Taylor. I have played nearly every model of Martin, Takamine, Taylor and various other brands searching for that "perfect" guitar. I stayed away from the Martin dreadnought for the D string issue so Taylor began to get my full attention... until I plugged it into a QSC K12 directly without any extra sound tweeks. The ES electronics sounded like a glorified electric guitar with a hint of acoustic, no matter how I tweeked the bass and treble on the Taylor. That killed it. I thought well, I am not finding anything that "floats my boat." So, I drove up to the Dallas, Tx area to hear a dear friend play LIVE at a high end restaurant with two other guys. It was amazing acoustic/electric music covers of the Eagles, Jim Croche, James Taylor and everything in between. Last 30 minutes in comes a man with a brand new jumbo Martin and comes up to sing and play. Well, from that moment on, every seasoned player on the stage (all with over 30 yrs. experience) had to play it and wouldn't put it down. More players drifted up and everyone was so inspired to play and sing with THAT guitar. It was just a matter of getting back to Houston and finding one at Guitar Center. I did. The sound through the system (Mackie powered mixer running through EAW cube cabinets) was absolutely amazing and no standing waves or feedback of any kind. So, for this gal, there is absolutely no more searching needed. All the fellows playing, (studio quality musicians who either worked on guitars, built guitars or owned many guitars, most over 5K each) said this Martin JCPA4 sounded better than most high end guitars they presently owned or had owned or played or heard or all. I can't say anything more than that. It bore this long of a write up because, being an analytical audiofile, it just had to be said in detail!!! I rest my case and am really excited to play again with such a fine instrument!! Thank you, Martin!!!

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