Just spent an hour of quality time with my DV-52
I recently played a bunch of acoustic Martins, Gibsons, and Taylors. In my humble opinion, the only guitar that stood up to my DV-52 was an 800 series rosewood Taylor. None of the others, even other rosewood Taylors could produce "that sound".
Many of the others had a nice tone on the top end but the lower end was dead, this seemed pretty common. On my DV-52, the wound strings produce a real piano like tone with ring and sustain. Same with the Taylor 814. Which brings me to my point:
The DV-52 is the best deal going on a vintage rosewood dreadnaught. They can be had on ebay for US $1,000 or less. Add the deluxe woods, inlays, scalloped bracing, etc, and you're not going to find a comparable guitar for under $2,500-$3,000.
I love the way Guild made liberal use of nice headstock inlays too. The other guys aren't just giving this stuff away, you need to buy one of their high-end guitars in order to get a mother-of-pearl headstock inlay.
Bottom line is, if you can get your hands on a DV-52, grab it. That's my $.02, and I'm stickin' with it!
I recently played a bunch of acoustic Martins, Gibsons, and Taylors. In my humble opinion, the only guitar that stood up to my DV-52 was an 800 series rosewood Taylor. None of the others, even other rosewood Taylors could produce "that sound".
Many of the others had a nice tone on the top end but the lower end was dead, this seemed pretty common. On my DV-52, the wound strings produce a real piano like tone with ring and sustain. Same with the Taylor 814. Which brings me to my point:
The DV-52 is the best deal going on a vintage rosewood dreadnaught. They can be had on ebay for US $1,000 or less. Add the deluxe woods, inlays, scalloped bracing, etc, and you're not going to find a comparable guitar for under $2,500-$3,000.
I love the way Guild made liberal use of nice headstock inlays too. The other guys aren't just giving this stuff away, you need to buy one of their high-end guitars in order to get a mother-of-pearl headstock inlay.
Bottom line is, if you can get your hands on a DV-52, grab it. That's my $.02, and I'm stickin' with it!