Collings OM-2HG

This guitar is an OM size guitar with a 25.5 inch scale. It has Indian Rosewood back and sides, and a German Spruce top. One feature of a collings is definately that it has a bolt on "mortise and tenon" style neck joint. This makes it a lot easier and cheaper to do a neck reset. One thing I don't like about Collings guitars (except for the Varnish guitars)is that the finish is a little thick. I know they use a Catalyzed laquer basecoat and then they spray nitrocellulose laquer over that, which makes the finish a bit thick in my opinion. I will say that the slightly thicker finish doesn't seem to impede the tone of this guitar because it is loud and open sounding from the get-go.

Also, the neck has a catalyzed laquer finish, and it is high gloss, and I definately prefer the smoother feel of Santa Cruz guitars, but the size of the neck is a nice medium V shape, and it feels very nice to play. The guitar also had great feel, in that the strings were not to tight and strings bends were not a struggle at all.

This guitar is very loud for an OM, actually louder than many of the dreadnaughts in the shop I was at. It also had SO MUCH SUSTAINNNN. The German Spruce top and Indian rosewood back and sides made this guitar have LOTS of overtones, and deep bass. It still had some trebel sparkel that Collings are known for, and it almost had that metalic sound that Collings can have, but I prefer the woodier sound of Martins. I think that the German spruce top almost made the guitar have too many overtones, and it sounded like it was already a played in guitar, not tight sounding like Adirondack spruce can sound. But, that got kindof annoying because the guitar didn't have as much headroom as an Adirondack Spruce guitar, so when it was strummed hard, it kindof got a bit muddy and indistinct, with not enough note separation when playing chords. The more my ear developed, the more I realized I wanted a guitar that can be strummed hard and won't sound muddy, and will still have plenty of note separation for chords. This guitar had almost too much sustain for me. So I have since traded it in for a Martin OM-18GE, which is exactly what I was looking for.

It's a collings, fit and finish were PERFECT!

The action definately t