Wavebender
New Member
I haven’t played every model, but I have played and owned my share of the post 2017 SE range, looking for the sweetest balance between tone, playability, aesthetics, and money. I ended up with a 2018 T60 and a 2018 A40 as my main squeezes. The former to record, the latter to play live.
I’m sure most of you know that the smart money in the traditional Martin line is the classic D28. You can spend more, but you don’t really get more from the fancier/pricier models. The more fiscally approachable D18 saves you a few hundred bucks, but would Blackbird or Mother Nature’s Son have sounded as warm and fuzzy if McCartney had played them with a brittle mahogany Martin? Of course not.
In my quest for the finest SE acoustics, I saw some with unacceptably ugly wood. The worst were X60 models with ziricote bodies. It’s a beautiful wood, but man that sapwood can be nasty looking to my old-school eyes. There’s a reason you never see sapwood used in classic acoustics: it was universally considered an unusable, flawed tonewood for hundreds of years. Guess what? It is still bloody junk wood suitable for roasting weenies and not much else, in my not so humble opinion.
All this is to say that the A40 is the sweet spot for the vast majority of semi-pro guitarists. It can do everything. It is unpretentious. You could write the best song of your life on it. You could win the mate you’ve always dreamed of with it. The T40 sounds richer and the T60 is noticeably warmer for recording and certainly is prettier than the T40, if that matters to you. I split the difference with my two choices. But if you can only buy one, choose the A40.
We all know that Mr Smith aims for consistency above all else and that he and his amazing crew achieve that goal damn near every time. But cheap ugly wood is cheap ugly wood; some of it passes SE standards and hangs in guitar stores. Some of you don’t care, but I do. Beauty matters.
I’m sure most of you know that the smart money in the traditional Martin line is the classic D28. You can spend more, but you don’t really get more from the fancier/pricier models. The more fiscally approachable D18 saves you a few hundred bucks, but would Blackbird or Mother Nature’s Son have sounded as warm and fuzzy if McCartney had played them with a brittle mahogany Martin? Of course not.
In my quest for the finest SE acoustics, I saw some with unacceptably ugly wood. The worst were X60 models with ziricote bodies. It’s a beautiful wood, but man that sapwood can be nasty looking to my old-school eyes. There’s a reason you never see sapwood used in classic acoustics: it was universally considered an unusable, flawed tonewood for hundreds of years. Guess what? It is still bloody junk wood suitable for roasting weenies and not much else, in my not so humble opinion.
All this is to say that the A40 is the sweet spot for the vast majority of semi-pro guitarists. It can do everything. It is unpretentious. You could write the best song of your life on it. You could win the mate you’ve always dreamed of with it. The T40 sounds richer and the T60 is noticeably warmer for recording and certainly is prettier than the T40, if that matters to you. I split the difference with my two choices. But if you can only buy one, choose the A40.
We all know that Mr Smith aims for consistency above all else and that he and his amazing crew achieve that goal damn near every time. But cheap ugly wood is cheap ugly wood; some of it passes SE standards and hangs in guitar stores. Some of you don’t care, but I do. Beauty matters.
