Martin 00-15V

00 body, short scale, 1 3/4" string spacing at nut. Solid sitka top, solid mohogany back & sides, aging toner with gloss finisy. Mohogany neck, ebony fretboard and bridge. Modified V shaped neck. The finish started out as a typical, beautiful nitrocellulose Martin finish. But, it gets worse. See below.

I play nearly 100% fingerstyle. Had a good sound other than the nuts that fit on top of the headstock are fake, they don't screw in, they are like a push pin and they vibrate. I was shocked that Martin would put out something like this. So, I had to take them all out and glue them, only slightly though, in case I needed to take them back out. The sound is a 10 after I fixed the tuners, but from the factory it was a 5 at best.

Action started out okay, but not what you would expect for this style of guitar (was too high) and could not be adjusted down because of a poor neck set. The saddle wouldn't go low enough. Again, what has happened to Martin? It gets worse, rather ridiculuous. The bridge came off! After arguing with my dealer and Martin, they agreed to replace the bridge (this guitar was only 6 months old at this time). After I got it back and played it for about a week, the finish started to peel off like a snakes skin. I had to call and send it back again for a replacement. I opted for the D18V just to try and get away from this thing hoping it was just that particular model or run. It gets worse.

This guitar would not withstand anything, live or studio. Then, the D18V they sent me came new from the factory with unfinished frets!!! They had been leveled but not crowned or polished. It sounded like a cat scratching on a screen door. I could not believe what I was getting from CF Martin, yes, it was a Martin. So, they had me take this one to the dealer and trade it for another 00-18V. The nut was cut wrong and the bottom sting did not fret properly, it slipped over the neck. And, it had the same tuning key problem as the first one.

Martin was very reluctant to accomodate me, including the dealer, the local authorized Martin tech, and the factory. I think they wanted me to think it was my fault and trade it so everyone would be out from under it and I would lose several hundred dollars on a six month old guitar. By this time I realized that the Vintage Series, though good looking and quite nice sounding and playing, are evidentally built very cheap, or perhaps Martin is sacraficing quality across the board since they have started building so many different models. As for customer support, I didn't get any without a fight. Finally, I had to demand a refund, which I got. But the Martin rep I spoke to said this was all my fault, that I was just too picky, and it's so ridiculous that I'll leave out all the details other than to say he told me I needed to buy a Taylor!!!! This was the sixth new Martin guitar I had bought and that's what kind of support and treatment i got.

I love Martin guitars, if you can find a good one, which is getting harder every day. They are trying too hard to compete with other companies by building hundreds of models and again, I think they are sacraficing quality in order to keep up with making all these signature series, limited editions, composites, the list goes on, and have gotten away from the basic Martin line. I hate to see this happen to one of the finest sounding and playing guitars that was ever made, but it is. And the rudeness and boldness of the support from the dealer to the manufacturer level was dispicable.