Product: Alpha Musical Instruments A682
Price Paid: N/A used
Submitted
03/14/2005
at
10:33am
by
Jan Stevens
Features
:
8
According to the Martin company this guitar was made in the eighties. It was made in Holland in a place called Boxtel. It's a dreadnought modelled after a Martin D18. Solid spruce top, solid mahogany back and sides. 2-piece mahogany neck with a satin finish, a rosewood bridge and fretboard and some good (made in Germany) tuners. I can't make up what the nut and bridge are made of, but it's probably not bone.
Sound
:
8
The last couple of years I mostly play acoustic stuff in the styles of Richard Thompson, Neil Young and such. This guitar lends itself more for the Neil than the Richard style stuff. It's not as good as my new Martin HD28 and my '76 D28 but has some of their characteristics. It doesn't sound anything like my Takamine N10 (cedar top) or my Daion MS100 (maple back & sides). It lacks the sustian of the D28 and the harmonics of the HD28. It has sustain though, but not like a vintage Martin. It's very loud though and the notes are seperately hearable (if that makes any sense to you).
Action, Fit, & Finish
:
7
Don't now about the original set-up, but it wasn't very good when I bought it. A little tweak with the truss-rod and a bit of sanding down the saddle made it play great though. The finish is a little crazed, porbably due to standing in the sun or too near to the central heating. Binding is very well, bracing shows some spilled glue. They used a straight and fine-grained piece of spruce for the top, the material for the back and sides is above average. The tuners are doing their job.
Reliability/Durability
:
9
Never used this one live, I use it occasionally for recording though. This guitar will last though for it has been used heavily for the last 20 years and shows no signs of giving up yet!
Customer Support
:
10
This guitar was made by the Martin company and they told me some things about the company after requesting some information. They bought the Dutch company in the eighties. It used to be called the Egmond company which changed it's name to Alpha. That's the company Martin bought. It stopped the production after a couple of years, probably because the Japanese and Korean copies were too competitive for a budget Martin from Holland. I give my rating for the friendly info given by Martin!
Overall Rating
:
8
Been playing for about 20 years. Have played in a couple of bands but mostly play solo acoustic now. I have a whole range of acoustics made by Martin, Yamaki, Tama, Takamine, Daion and Levin. I like this Alpha for being Dutch (like me) and still sound like a good Martin-clone. Because if I have to be honest, Holland is not known for it's luthiers. It has some good charateristics.
