Stanford D5 Vintage

The Stanford D5 Vintage is a non-cutaway-Dreadnaught which is handmade in the Czech Republic. (Stanford is a trademark of furch guitars: www.furch.cz). The D5 Vintage features a solid sitka spruce top, solid indian rosewood sides and back, a mahogany Neck with indian rosewood fingerboard, medium frets and abalone dots. It has a rosewood bridge with rosewood pins. The headstock is slotted and equipped with closed groover machines. The top has those really nice vintage herringbone-bindings. The body features a high gloss finish, the neck a smooth satin finish. The guitar features a "prewar" bracing, also known as "high X". The guitar is strung with light (0.12) elixir strings.
Although the guitar has no built in electronics, i'll give it a 10 for its overall perfection.

This guitar rocks! I play with a pick, this Al Di Meola kind of stuff and also some Jazz (-Rock). I was searching for an acoustic with a good balanced sound, and as i dont liked the piezo pickup sound on any guitar i played, i looked for a "real" acoustic guitar without electronical gimmics. Normally you think of a dreadnought beeing the first choice for country and bluegrass music, but this guitar has a greater variety. The sound is clear, loud and very bright, on every part of the fingerboard. The lower stings have those bell-like basses, boomy but not too boomy, the mids are rich, tight and clear and highs are really sparkling. I thinks its the rosewood body in combination with the sitka top that gives this guitar that loud, overall balanced sound that makes the guitar perfect for solo playing. On the most (mahogany) dreadnoughts i tested, the basses were too boomy and the mids and highs too soft , which is often preferred for that "singer-songwriter-sound".

I tested the guitar in comparison to the Santa Cruz D-Prewar, which costs about 2,5 times as much as the Stanford D5 and also features the prewar-bracing. They could be sisters in perfection, but the Stanford sounded better! The finish of the Stanford D5 vintage is perfect in every single point, the action was really great right out of the store, i had to change nothing! ( I own a superb Tom Anderson Strat with an action so low that you cant put a piece of paper between frets and strings, but the overall feeling of the satin-finished Stanford neck is even better!) What els can I say, another 10.

This guitar is an example for perfect craftmanship, i'm sure if you treat it good, it will last a lifetime.

Heavn't dealt with the company yet

I play guitar for 20 years now, i owned (and sold) a lot of them. This bautiful guitar will stay, if it would be stolen and i get that guy, i will cut out his heart with a spoon! I dont know if Stanford guitars are available in the USA, but if you see one, get it! You'll get the Sound and perfection of a Santa cruz for the fraction of its price.