Hello Everyone,
I just got my first Guild acoustic last week, a 1984 D25 SB thanks to the advice that I found on this forum while doing some research. After years of primarily messing with the electric guitar I decided to focus on acoustic. I decided that I'm not joining a band and what I really want to do with guitar is have a decent number of songs down that I can play and sing with others around the campfire.
I have a Seagull S6 acoustic that I love. It has great mids and highs and wonderful tone but is a little light on bass. It's really more of a fingerpicking guitar. I wanted that classic cedar top guitar sound. I thought I wanted a solid cedar top with solid rosewood back and sides. This led me to the Guild GAD-50, Yamaha LL16, and Blueridge BR-160. Only the GAD-50 was available to try at a local shop. In researching the GAD-50 I found this forum and the recommendation to others to try the D25. I found a just listed D25 on CL in Omaha which is about three hours away. Last Saturday I drove up and bought it for $500. Not a steal but less than I was going to spend. It's in used but never abused condition.
The previous owner was a bluegrass picker who had it setup with high action and medium strings. I took it to my tech who set it up with light strings and lowered the action for me. Now it plays fantastic and sounds magical.
I'm getting used to the narrower string spacing and neck on the D25. I'm also getting used to the way this likes to be strummed and picked vs my Seagull to bring out the guitar's voice. I love it so far.
My tech was able to get the action to the height he likes to setup acoustics which is 6/64 at 12 on the low E and 4/64 on the high E. This gives a nice playable action while avoiding buzz on hard strumming as well as giving a full tone. He did say this is it though. He cannot go any lower on the saddle without losing the break angle. If it needs further adjustment a neck reset will be needed. He said it could be fine for years. The neck reset in the future is not a big deal to me though since even with a neck reset and a new bridge and saddle I'll still have only about $100 more than a GAD-50 invested and the D25 will be good to go for another 26 years. Probably longer since I play light strings.
For strings I went with the DR Rare phosphor bronze lights. I thing I'll be sticking with these. They give a solid bass along with nice mids and highs. Overall just the sound I was hoping to get out of the D25.
Thanks for the great info on this forum. It lead to me getting a fantastic guitar that was not even on my radar. I'll get some pics up soon.
I just got my first Guild acoustic last week, a 1984 D25 SB thanks to the advice that I found on this forum while doing some research. After years of primarily messing with the electric guitar I decided to focus on acoustic. I decided that I'm not joining a band and what I really want to do with guitar is have a decent number of songs down that I can play and sing with others around the campfire.
I have a Seagull S6 acoustic that I love. It has great mids and highs and wonderful tone but is a little light on bass. It's really more of a fingerpicking guitar. I wanted that classic cedar top guitar sound. I thought I wanted a solid cedar top with solid rosewood back and sides. This led me to the Guild GAD-50, Yamaha LL16, and Blueridge BR-160. Only the GAD-50 was available to try at a local shop. In researching the GAD-50 I found this forum and the recommendation to others to try the D25. I found a just listed D25 on CL in Omaha which is about three hours away. Last Saturday I drove up and bought it for $500. Not a steal but less than I was going to spend. It's in used but never abused condition.
The previous owner was a bluegrass picker who had it setup with high action and medium strings. I took it to my tech who set it up with light strings and lowered the action for me. Now it plays fantastic and sounds magical.
I'm getting used to the narrower string spacing and neck on the D25. I'm also getting used to the way this likes to be strummed and picked vs my Seagull to bring out the guitar's voice. I love it so far.
My tech was able to get the action to the height he likes to setup acoustics which is 6/64 at 12 on the low E and 4/64 on the high E. This gives a nice playable action while avoiding buzz on hard strumming as well as giving a full tone. He did say this is it though. He cannot go any lower on the saddle without losing the break angle. If it needs further adjustment a neck reset will be needed. He said it could be fine for years. The neck reset in the future is not a big deal to me though since even with a neck reset and a new bridge and saddle I'll still have only about $100 more than a GAD-50 invested and the D25 will be good to go for another 26 years. Probably longer since I play light strings.
For strings I went with the DR Rare phosphor bronze lights. I thing I'll be sticking with these. They give a solid bass along with nice mids and highs. Overall just the sound I was hoping to get out of the D25.
Thanks for the great info on this forum. It lead to me getting a fantastic guitar that was not even on my radar. I'll get some pics up soon.
