The axe in my avatar is a GF55.
They very unique individual guitars. The F30 is light as a feather and is a great finger picking axe. It holds up to strumming, but gets find of muddy when pushed too hard. It has been dead reliable for the 30+ years its been in the family. I can't remember the last time I had to adjust the neck - if I've ever had too. There was a time when I was using medium gauge strings on it to give more "oomph", but have since gone back to lights.
The GF55 is much heavier, being made of rosewood instead of mahogany.
The rosewood and the larger body give it a louder presence but it still has a nice intimate feel that I think gets lost in a jumbo size. It can be fingerpicked or flatpicked hard without it sounding mushy. It makes a good all-round solo instrument.
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Lonesome,
That is a good description of the tonal quality of two very different sounding guitars.
I have the same F-30, only from 1981, and how you described it, is pretty close to how I would say goes for mine as well. Warm, very focused midrange, very light, good for strumming as well as fingerpicking. I used to have light gauge strings on it, tried mediums. It raises the action a bit, which is good for slide. I had all Tusq bridge pins, saddle, nut installed, and that really brought out the tone in this puppy.
My '82 D-50 is close to how you described your GF55. Rosewood body, Spruce top, ebony, etc. Very bright, lots of bottom, very wide range of timbres in this guitar. Seems when I play two notes together, I hear three. Lots of harmonic action taking place when I play this instrument.
The differences between these two guitars is so much that you would think they were from different companies. But both are from Westerly, and just one year apart. One of course is a dreadnought, and the other is a mini-jumbo, but still the difference is amazing.
I guess that is one reason we have more than one; it gives us a palette from which to choose our sounds, and fit our moods.
And we musicians are moody people . . . aint' we.
