Members Grant Harding Posted June 2, 2017 Members Share Posted June 2, 2017 So my brother (we're a duo) has been looking for a guitar like my LL6, which has just been getting better over the years. After playing a whole raft of high end guitars alongside mine the clear winner was... a brand new Yamaha LL6. These are just wonderful guitars. The two together are great, with mine providing 20 years of fattening up and his having that tight crisp new guitar high end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted June 3, 2017 Members Share Posted June 3, 2017 And there are people who say guitars don't get better with age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 3, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 3, 2017 It really is amazing how much they sound alike. We auditioned Martins,Taylors, Maton, Cole Clarke, Breedloves, etc, and none of them really blended with mine the way we were hoping. Most of them were fantastic guitars that I'd love to own. When we found an LL6 to try it was obviously the same family. Mine was from before they started advertising the AIR treatment on their tops. I have to admit that his sounds slightly better in almost every way, but mine has noticeably more low end. Might just be that his has more treble. They're both REALLY LOUD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members garthman Posted June 4, 2017 Members Share Posted June 4, 2017 And there are people who say guitars don't get better with age. And I'm one of them. But see: "So my brother (we're a duo) has been looking for a guitar like my LL6, which has just been getting better over the years. After playing a whole raft of high end guitars alongside mine the clear winner was... a brand new Yamaha LL6" "It really is amazing how much they sound alike". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 4, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2017 Amazing that this turned into this so fast. You've jumped in and interpreted my comment as "the tone is exactly the same" rather than "way more alike than any of the other guitars we compared to it" to fit your universally known opinion that the material the guitar is made of makes no difference to the sound. This is like a mission for you right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 4, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2017 For the record I think guitars do most of their settling in within the first year of being tuned to pitch and played regularly. After that I don't ascribe any sort of older is better rule, but they do keep changing slowly over long periods in my experience. Mine have less punchy treble and mids, but the bass is louder and more pleasant sounding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members garthman Posted June 5, 2017 Members Share Posted June 5, 2017 Amazing that this turned into this so fast. You've jumped in and interpreted my comment as "the tone is exactly the same" rather than "way more alike than any of the other guitars we compared to it" to fit your universally known opinion that the material the guitar is made of makes no difference to the sound. This is like a mission for you right? Well, they were your words, mate. For the record, I've never said that the material from which an acoustic guitar is made doesn't influence the sound. An acoustic guitar "works" because the energy of the vibrating string is transferred to the molecules of the top of the guitar - especially around the bridge area - which causes more air molecules to vibrate than would the string alone. So one would expect the material of the guitar to therefore have some influence (and we are talking strictly acoustic guitars here not electric - in those instruments the effect of the guitar material is minimal). I just strongly query the notion that an acoustic guitar's sound "improves" with age. Why should it? How could it happen? Surely the most obvious answer is that it is the owner's ears that change over time. As we get older we lose the ability to detect higher frequencies so one would therefore expect a guitar to sound more "mellow" with more base. Maybe? And no, it's not a mission. I just prefer commonsense, science-based explanations rather than the influence of fairies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 5, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 5, 2017 It''s the same old argument. You can't hear the subtlety and the science isn't fully understood so you "strongly query" those that can. It would also pay to factor in that I play almost every style of music and push my guitars to their limits, so I believe I expose the strengths and weaknesses more than most. If I just strummed or lightly picked them they'd probably all sound about the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members garthman Posted June 7, 2017 Members Share Posted June 7, 2017 Same old argument perhaps but despite all the discussions I've yet to have heard a feasible explanation based on scientific principles. And actually I personally feel that gentle finger-picking or strumming reveals the true beauty of a guitar - and also demonstrates the subtle differences between different instruments - much more so than flogging them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 7, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 7, 2017 Different strokes. I play for the crowd, so it's usually more fun, lively stuff. If by flogging you mean driving the top when that's the best sound then yes - I don't put plastic on my furniture either. I play a whole bunch of James Taylor and similar soft and beautiful songs in the right setting. The great solid woods in my guitars let me do the whole lot to the standard that I think it should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members garthman Posted June 7, 2017 Members Share Posted June 7, 2017 Thankfully we are all different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strayGoat Posted June 8, 2017 Members Share Posted June 8, 2017 Happy New Yammo Day! I had an LL6 several years ago, and it was one of the best guitar experiences I've had. At the time, they were being made with ebony bridges & F/B. The fit and finish were ridiculous for a guitar at that price, and the playability was fantastic. It started me on the road to Yamaha fandom. Among my other guitars, I currently own a J-45 Limited, which I've decided to sell (I just cannot get comfortable with the short scale), and I've just purchased a Yamaha LL16 (online). I'm "replacing" a $2800 git with an $800 git, and I'm thrilled about it. I would have bought another LL6, but I just have a slight preference for the ebony bridge & f/b on the 16. I do wish Yamaha would scallop the bracing on their L series. If I like the incoming LL16, that's a task I may take on myself. It'll void the warranty, but in the embarrassingly many guitars I've owned over the years, I don't think I've ever utilized a warranty, so WTH. Funny that they ARE scalloping the braces now on the FG series - a really fantastic development, particularly as they haven't raised the prices at all, as far as I can tell. I own an FG730S (the predecessor to the now-scalloped FG830), which I initially purchased for busking as I thought it would be a good "beater." Definitely NOT a beater. I've grown very fond of that guitar. My respect for Yamaha in general is huge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strayGoat Posted June 8, 2017 Members Share Posted June 8, 2017 I just strongly query the notion that an acoustic guitar's sound "improves" with age. Why should it? How could it happen? Surely the most obvious answer is that it is the owner's ears that change over time. As we get older we lose the ability to detect higher frequencies so one would therefore expect a guitar to sound more "mellow" with more base. Maybe? I'm not sure I necessarily buy into the idea that a guitar's tone improves with age myself. I suppose if someone were to record a guitar playing the identical tune in the identical way under identical circumstances over a period of 30 years or so, I could be convinced. But so far in my experience it's all anecdotal. I do think that one's perception of how a guitar sounds probably does improve as one gets accustomed to the instrument's nuances and learns just how to play it and string it and set it up to maximize desirable tone. Yamaha is currently using some kind of accelerated aging process they call A.R.E. (acoustic resonance enhancement), but I honestly have no clue exactly what that treatment entails. I have heard of people subjecting guitars/tops to vibration, which I gather is supposed to actually have some kind of molecular impact to accelerate the process of "opening up." I don't comprehend the science of it well enough to comment in favor of or against the logic of this. I don't mean to argue with people who believe guitars sound better with age - that may well be true. But my own acoustic memory just isn't good enough for me to remember what my guitar sounded like, comparatively, 10 years ago. What I find generally is that if a guitar doesn't sound great in the first day or two that I own it, it won't sound great to me in 10 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 8, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 8, 2017 We have 2 LL6 guitars that are the same woods and construction, but one is brand new and the other is about 20 years old. Same new strings. They both sound great and pretty much the same, but the older one is less bright and has more obvious thump in the bass. I never say older is better, but there is a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strayGoat Posted June 8, 2017 Members Share Posted June 8, 2017 A fantastic guitar model at any age, I would say. If a player notes a difference based on age - or any other factor - I tend to defer to that player's individual observation. I don't think I've ever owned any single guitar longer than five years, so I can't offer any input from my own experience. Now that I mention it, it's kind of crazy that I've shuffled through guitars so quickly. I've had my M-36 less than a year, but that is one guitar I can pretty confidently say I won't part with until I'm dead. Even after that, I may come back for it. Speaking of which, before I finally bought it (I kept coming back to it when trying out gits at a local Sam Ash), I did listen to some recordings (YT) of old M-38's (very similar) and M-36's, and I remember thinking they sounded pretty spectacular despite my crap speakers - particularly one M-38 circa 90's. Unfortunately I don't know what those gits sounded like new, but damn they age well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 8, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 8, 2017 In my experience most of the change is in the first year or two and it's reasonably subtle, so I've never actively sought old or used ones. The used guitars I've bought were for $ reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted June 8, 2017 Members Share Posted June 8, 2017 Congratulations and Happy New Guitar Day to your brother. I'm also in the camp that guitars don't improve appreciably with age. For example, old Martins sound like old Martins because they're old Martins. Regardless, the LL6 is a very good guitar and that's what counts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted June 8, 2017 Author Members Share Posted June 8, 2017 I'll try to do a video with my bro with some real mics to hopefully show the difference. Hopefully we'll be able to replicate it in 20 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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