Ashurbanipal
Well-known member
There's a rather nice music shop close to my place which has a rather juicy wall of Lowden guitars. All manner of spruce and cedar topped models. I'm not an expert on Lowdens but am aware of their booteek status and endorsement from prominent players, including Pierre Bensusan. The shop had this model in stock, and, as I'm a fan of Pierre's compositions, I thought I'd give it a whirl.
Here's what it looks like:
Specs are adirondack top, Honduran rosewood back/sides, ebony board, 5 piece maple/mahogany neck, rosewood bridge, Gotoh tuners, forearm bevel.
It's impeccably built - flawless apart from some file marks on the last fret.
The neck profile is interesting. Lowden calls it 'fingerstyle' and it is indeed suited to that. If you're a strummer and like to cradle the neck in your palm, this is not the guitar for you - the profile is not comfortable for that. Likewise, the action is set towards the high side, which encourages classical style hand positioning. I liked it though, very nice.
Now the tone. It's got a fair bit of volume for a guitar with a relatively thick top - this surprised me. The timbre is a bit like an intimate piano - warm and silky with good attack and cut; the whole thing is bursting with harmonics and overtones. Depending how you play (and how hard), it can sound brash or velvety; it takes a bit of stick well, though I found myself lightly stroking the strings for some delicate arpeggiated chords - quite sublime! I think the description on the website of it having warmth and brilliance is accurate.
I was quite impressed with the round warm tone of the top two strings in particular; really gives nice meat to single note runs.
I'm used to new spruce guitars sounding stiff and not fully developed but this thing is outrageously good!
Given the higher action, it takes a bit of work if you're not used to that but I think the rewards are worth it.
Downside? It's over 8k :bigeyes:, and the F# on the A string had a bit of a wolf tone, but something like that is a given on acoustic guitars, regardless of how good they are.
But this is the first spruce guitar I've played that made me go, 'yep, that's it'. I think it'll haunt my thoughts for some time.
Here's what it looks like:
Specs are adirondack top, Honduran rosewood back/sides, ebony board, 5 piece maple/mahogany neck, rosewood bridge, Gotoh tuners, forearm bevel.
It's impeccably built - flawless apart from some file marks on the last fret.
The neck profile is interesting. Lowden calls it 'fingerstyle' and it is indeed suited to that. If you're a strummer and like to cradle the neck in your palm, this is not the guitar for you - the profile is not comfortable for that. Likewise, the action is set towards the high side, which encourages classical style hand positioning. I liked it though, very nice.
Now the tone. It's got a fair bit of volume for a guitar with a relatively thick top - this surprised me. The timbre is a bit like an intimate piano - warm and silky with good attack and cut; the whole thing is bursting with harmonics and overtones. Depending how you play (and how hard), it can sound brash or velvety; it takes a bit of stick well, though I found myself lightly stroking the strings for some delicate arpeggiated chords - quite sublime! I think the description on the website of it having warmth and brilliance is accurate.
I was quite impressed with the round warm tone of the top two strings in particular; really gives nice meat to single note runs.
I'm used to new spruce guitars sounding stiff and not fully developed but this thing is outrageously good!
Given the higher action, it takes a bit of work if you're not used to that but I think the rewards are worth it.
Downside? It's over 8k :bigeyes:, and the F# on the A string had a bit of a wolf tone, but something like that is a given on acoustic guitars, regardless of how good they are.
But this is the first spruce guitar I've played that made me go, 'yep, that's it'. I think it'll haunt my thoughts for some time.
, so I don't need to over analyze it.
