Goodall Grand Concert Rosewood/Englemann Spruce AAA

Made Oktober 2005, 14frets, Englemann AAA top, rosewood sides and back, mahogany neck, ebony fretboard, bridge, bridgepins tuners and endpin, koa binding, bone nut and sadle, mother of pearl inlay in the headstock, fretboard, endpin and bridgepins. Trnasparent finish. I think Gotoh tuners, not shure, but certainly no shallers! But they work 100% with beautifull ebony buttons! Very good case included. All hardware is silver plated. I give it a 10, because there is not one single mm of plastic used on the entire guitar!!!!!!!!! Everything is made of natural materials only.

Impecable for fingerpicking! Little guitar, so, no bass? Forget it, this thing has as much bass as a Taylor jumbo, without the treble strings sounding dull. The treble strings are as silky, smooth, singing, lyrical etc... as anyone could ever wish for. Sustain is unbelievable for such a tiny guitar. When you play a bass note say in 4/4 with a tempo of 80bpm or so, you could let this note ring for at least two full measures without problems, so who needs a bigger guitar for more sustain? And don't forget this thing has just been made, who knows how this will sound in a year or so? Well, I can imagine it will be stellar sounding! This is heaven allready. I don't flatpick, but I noticed that it sounds also great when strummed, so I think it would even be suited for this kind of playing, but, Goodall also makes (much) larger guitars perhaps better for this purpose?

33Let me start with the finish first: impecable, period. I have never ever seen anything better finished than this baby! Apparantly you don't need machines to make a 100% impecable finished instrument! Bob Taylor would off course disagree with this, and tell you that his "contraptions" are made by machines to garantee you a better finished instrument, and profit has nothing to do with it!!! How do you explain then that this mainly handmade guitar is better finished than any Taylor, sounds better than any Taylor, looks better than any Taylor, has better materials than any Taylor, plays just as easy as any Taylor I have ever played BUT does not cost one penny more than a top of the line Taylor? What am I saying here, it costs less than a Taylor!!! I have payed Euro 3300,00 for it, which is what I would have to pay here in Europe, for a Taylor 800 series!!! Can you believe this? Really, no shit, this is ABSOLUTELY better finished and has better materials than a 900 series Taylor, heck it leans more towards a Presentation Taylor if you forget about all the unnecessary pearl inlays, and these Taylors cost about Euro 10.000,00 here!! P.S. I have absolutely nothing against Taylors, and if they would cost half the price they do, which is what they are worth anyway, I would support them! Nitpicking time now!! I have a terrible hard and agressive style of fingerpicking, so for me the action was a bit too low. For most of the fingerpickers it was o.k.though, but not for me. Too low means raising the bridge by inserting a shimmy, which I don't like at all, or by replacing it with another. I did a mail to "The Acoustic Music Co." in Brighton, U.K., where I purchased it , on friday and monday I received an envelope from the U.K. with a new bone Goodall sadlle!! Two days later, can you believe this? I cut it at the correct hight for my style of playing and done, as simple as that. No string buzz even when tuned low and open, capoed in the 5th fret or so and hit the strings hard enough to brake them, perfect! By the way, all Taylors I have had in the past had even lower action than this Goodall, and I had to wait longer to get a new sadle (made of el cheapo plastic or something instead of bone!)and would rattle like hell when tuned other than standard (even low D!). Off course according to Taylor this is normal, if you like to play in different tunings, you need one extra Taylor guitar for each tuning you play in?!? Why then doesn't this Goodall, nor my other Lowden O35, for that matter, rattle when tuned open? I just tell my experiences here and let all of you readers be the judge of this.

Everything looks and feels like it will last a lifetime when properly maintained, but since I only have it a couple of weeks I can not possibly have an opinion about this, can I.

Since I live in Belgium, and it is made in Hawaii U.S.A., and I bought it in the U.K., I am totally dependant on the service of "the Acoustic Music CO." of Brighton in the U.K., which is top notch!!
Read under "Action, Fit & Finish" please.

I play for 25 years now. My other guitar is a custom Lowden O35. Would I buy another if it were stolen, hell yes, without a doubt, I will probably buy another one even without this one being stolen!
I LOVE IT, PERIOD!