Both great guitars, I much preferred the ‘98. It seems that the Westerly post Fender builds were very good. I had a 99 D55 that I liked a lot better than a Corona built one I had the pleasure to play for a while. I’d a kept the 99 D55 had I not found something I liked better. I only let the D40 go for a Gibson Southern Jumbo. Out of the very many Guilds that I have owned (including three Gruhn/Walkers) the only one I regret letting go is the 98 D40..
Details please.
Yes, true. The 98 was also lighter braced, thinner finished and had the narrowest of the three modern headstocks.I'd be willing to bet the '98 was noticably lighter than the '76, just to start.
That describes my 86’ D-25 perfectly. Weighty and on paper should have absolutely zero tone and projection yet it’s the loudest acoustic I ever owned and has a nice low end.My ‘66 D40 is one of the lightest Guilds I have. I weighed it at about 4.8lbs. By contrast I had an ‘86 D25 once upon a time that could’ve doubled as a boat anchor.
It will be interesting to compare side by side. But so far, the D35 is the most unlike the other dreadnoughts IME.I think the D-35 was a weird red headed stepchild of the line after the D-25 switched to spruce tops even though my arched back spruce top D-25 is very different from my D-35 in that it has more low end punch whereas the D-35 has a brighter attack which when recorded together has a cool result. When originally conceived the D-35 made sense, a more stripped down dreadnaught that’s cheaper than the D-40 that would satisfy the demand doe guitars during the folk boom but after the D-25 got spruce tops I had a hard time figuring out what was the point of the D-35 unless they had demand for a stripped down flat/braced back offering with better tuners. I never played a D-40 so I cannot really say much about them but from the catalog descriptions from the mid 70’s is the D40 seems to get more aesthetically appealing woods, heck Guild may even have had a system of how to see if the top woods would be tonally superior but that in itself would be subjective. Though I have heard reports that a D-35 and D-40 are tonally different. Looking forward to your findings on the matter. I thought about owning a D-40 but the specs are so close to a D-35 that I have a hard time justifying owning one as I never seemed to be much for owning duplicates or guitars with nearly similar specs. Though it wouldn’t hurt if it’s for science?