I might want a Seagull guitar

This dude did a blind comparison of a Seagull to a vintage Gibson acoustic, and the Seagull did really well. Seagull guitars are something amazing. They're made in Canada, and they don't import any exotic woods from Indonesia,India, or wherever. They go all with local woods available in Canada, so they don't have any high importing costs.

I have a low-end Yamaha acoustic, but I'm looking to upgrade. Seagull kept being recommended to me. However, if I want to test drive one, I'll need to drive to Lincoln, which is about 50 miles from here (Omaha). I was surprised that no one here sells them. Others I've considered are Ibanez, Takamine, Alvarez, and Guild. I was interested in Ibanez because I love their electrics. However, thus far their acoustics have been disappointing. I haven't been able to find any Takamines here. The Alvarez and the Guilds were quite nice. If money were no object, I would get a Taylor. Those things are amazing. They're the Holy Grail of acoustics, but they're just out of my price range.

Does anyone play any of the acoustic brands I've mentioned? How do you like it?

About 10 years ago, I played a Taylor and was sold. I ended up just buying a Taylor Big Baby. (About $400 at the time) They sound incredible for $400. Better than some of the $2-$3k guitars. They aren't quite the build quality of a solid wood guitar, but getting a solid wood guitar for $400 you are looking at a Yamaha or something like that probably. (Not sure about Seagull)

I finally bought a solid wood Taylor (414CE-R), but I absolutely love it.

Either way, good luck!

YosemiteSam said:

About 10 years ago, I played a Taylor and was sold. I ended up just buying a Taylor Big Baby. (About $400 at the time) They sound incredible for $400. Better than some of the $2-$3k guitars. They aren't quite the build quality of a solid wood guitar, but getting a solid wood guitar for $400 you are looking at a Yamaha or something like that probably. (Not sure about Seagull)

I finally bought a solid wood Taylor (414CE-R), but I absolutely love it.

Either way, good luck!

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Wow, those Big Baby Taylors are a lot less money than most Taylors. Thanks for the info.

I've been checking out Takamines online. Gotta be careful with those, some are as pricey as the Taylors. One was sounding great on Youtube and when I looked it up, it cost 3K.

Here's an affordable Takamine. Looks nice to me:

I have to believe the people who answered the survey incorrectly are novices because you can tell by the head which guitar is which. The Gibson has a crisper sound as well. Not knocking the Seagull, it has a good sound but its not a Gibson. Plus, there is so much more to a guitar than just how it sounds. Cheap guitars will have cheap tuning keys, cheap truss rods, parts may not be assembled precisely, etc. I have an Epiphone 12-string. It sounds great but there are issues I have had with it related to cheap parts.

In any case, I have a Guild acoustic I bought in the 1980s. It has a really good sound, its good quality, but I never loved the action. On the other hand, I once had a Guild hollow body electric that I loved. I am sorry I sold it.

Creeper said:

I have to believe the people who answered the survey incorrectly are novices because you can tell by the head which guitar is which. The Gibson has a crisper sound as well. Not knocking the Seagull, it has a good sound but its not a Gibson. Plus, there is so much more to a guitar than just how it sounds. Cheap guitars will have cheap tuning keys, cheap truss rods, parts may not be assembled precisely, etc. I have an Epiphone 12-string. It sounds great but there are issues I have had with it related to cheap parts.

In any case, I have a Guild acoustic I bought in the 1980s. It has a really good sound, its good quality, but I never loved the action. On the other hand, I once had a Guild hollow body electric that I loved. I am sorry I sold it.

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You're right. There are plenty of issues besides sound. My Yamaha actually has decent sound and holds its tune. The issue is its playability. It's awful. Its action is high and you have to have strong fingers to play anything on it. It could work for strumming basic chords, but it's trash for playing any kind of leads. Its frets are really intrusive. Plus, it has no acoustic/electric features. It's not a guitar I would consider performing with. The other thing about acoustic/electrics is the tone can be adjusted through the amplification system, so if it's not crisp enough and cutting through, you could turn up the treble and cut some midrange.

I found one for you Rev
https://images.app.goo.gl/P1MRyAiDVoDzEeDU6

Reverend Conehead said:

You're right. There are plenty of issues besides sound. My Yamaha actually has decent sound and holds its tune. The issue is its playability. It's awful. Its action is high and you have to have strong fingers to play anything on it. It could work for strumming basic chords, but it's trash for playing any kind of leads. Its frets are really intrusive. Plus, it has no acoustic/electric features. It's not a guitar I would consider performing with. The other thing about acoustic/electrics is the tone can be adjusted through the amplification system, so if it's not crisp enough and cutting through, you could turn up the treble and cut some midrange.

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In my day Martin was THE acoustic guitar to have. They were too expensive for me when I was fiddling around. Once I had a lot of money, I found buying golf clubs to be more fun.

Creeper said:

In my day Martin was THE acoustic guitar to have. They were too expensive for me when I was fiddling around. Once I had a lot of money, I found buying golf clubs to be more fun.

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Martin still makes outstanding acoustics. However, IMO Taylor has overtaken them as the Holy Grail of Acoustic guitars. If I were given the choice of any acoustic to be given to me for free to play in practice and to perform with, but I would not be allowed to sell it, but it can be any guitar on the planet, I would not choose that vintage Gibson in the video, even though I'm sure that's a great guitar. I would choose a Taylor. But Martins are still excellent. Plus, this is just my opinion. There are probably guitar players who would pick a Martin over a Taylor.

Reverend Conehead said:

Martin still makes outstanding acoustics. However, IMO Taylor has overtaken them as the Holy Grail of Acoustic guitars. If I were given the choice of any acoustic to be given to me for free to play in practice and to perform with, but I would not be allowed to sell it, but it can be any guitar on the planet, I would not choose that vintage Gibson in the video, even though I'm sure that's a great guitar. I would choose a Taylor. But Martins are still excellent. Plus, this is just my opinion. There are probably guitar players who would pick a Martin over a Taylor.

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Your opinion is good. Martins were big in folk music. Not even sure that's a genre anymore. I haven't been into the music scene in years so there is a lot I do not know now. What I do know is I should have kept the guitars I played when I was in high school and college. I kept one, a Rickenbacker, but its a worthless POS compared to the ones I sold! I had a Les Paul Gold Top I bought at Manny's music in 1969. I sold it and a Guild electric to buy a car. I want both back but I would have to pay 15 times what I paid for them when I bought them originally - probably more.

Creeper said:

Your opinion is good. Martins were big in folk music. Not even sure that's a genre anymore. I haven't been into the music scene in years so there is a lot I do not know now. What I do know is I should have kept the guitars I played when I was in high school and college. I kept one, a Rickenbacker, but its a worthless POS compared to the ones I sold! I had a Les Paul Gold Top I bought at Manny's music in 1969. I sold it and a Guild electric to buy a car. I want both back but I would have to pay 15 times what I paid for them when I bought them originally - probably more.

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The whole lust for vintage guitars has gone mad. My guitar teacher had a 1965 Strat that he bought in about '67 for something like $150 to $200. I recently looked up what one of those would cost online, and it was a whopping 15.3K!

ive got an elcheapo Yamaha from GC on sale. I then decided I wanted one with an onboard preamp / eq / tuner. i went with a applause ( off brand ovation ) works well but the plastic bowl ( back ) has its own character.

i dont play enough or well enough to upgrade again. The Seagulls are getting good reviews as well as the Breedlove's. Only played one Martin for a few minutes and was left uninspired. Played a friends 1960 Gibson and it kinda set the bar for a sound I'll never be able to afford. Not that I have the skills to take advantage of such a huge investment.

Buy two or more and you will have a flock of seagulls!

Wow, Holy Meinhoff Phenomenon, Batman. I just re-watched one of my favorite Trevor Moore videos, his folks song, the Ballad of Billy-John. In this live performance, Trevor plays a Seagull guitar and his guitar player plays a Taylor. I won't be linking to the video because the piece is very dark humor that includes a lot of profanity and adult situations, so it's probably not in line with the site rules. But if you want to see it, it should be easy enough to find.

After work today, I went out and tried out more acoustic guitars in a different guitar shop. Turns out this shop does have Seagull guitars. The online guide has said the closest location with Seagulls was 50 miles away in Lincoln. Turns out there are Taylors also that are less expensive than I thought. The most affordable one I had previously found was $1200, but I played a $900 one today. That's still above my max budget of $600, but it does make me wonder if I should hold out longer to build up more money and then just get a Taylor.

Today I played a Taylor, a Seagull, an Ibanez, a Takamine, and a Yamaha. I may post more about them. They were all upgrades to what I have now.

This thread got me to take out my electric and play for the first time in years. Yikes! Rust is not harsh enough to describe what it felt like to play. I remember all the chords and a few riffs but putting them together was a total disaster! I was pretty disgusted at my performance. I think it's time to unload some of my gear. It's taking up space in my basement and who am I kidding? I should probably just keep my acoustic and 1 electric, and maybe the little 15 watt practice amp I have, then get rid of the rest.

The Martin D16 I bought for myself after graduating college in the late '80s is all the acoustic guitar that I will ever need. I compare it's sound with similar guitars made today and it still holds true to the superior sound it had the day I bought it.

I have a Takamine I bought in 1991. Was my go to acoustic until I bought a Taylor a couple years ago. The Taylor is now my go to but I still use the Takamine quite a bit, usually when messing with alternate tunings. The Takamine has served me very well and gets two thumbs up. I'd be happy with either one of them.

Never played a Seagull but I have heard about them and was intrigued enough to consider checking out the one that came up for sale on my local CL a month or so ago. Lack of need and distance away was the deciding factor in not checking it out. Now I'm having that same internal debate over a vintage Ludwig drum kit that is listed right now.

Vtwin said:

I have a Takamine I bought in 1991. Was my go to acoustic until I bought a Taylor a couple years ago. The Taylor is now my go to but I still use the Takamine quite a bit, usually when messing with alternate tunings. The Takamine has served me very well and gets two thumbs up. I'd be happy with either one of them.

Never played a Seagull but I have heard about them and was intrigued enough to consider checking out the one that came up for sale on my local CL a month or so ago. Lack of need and distance away was the deciding factor in not checking it out. Now I'm having that same internal debate over a vintage Ludwig drum kit that is listed right now.

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Thanks for the info. I've always found Takamine's to be quality guitars. I need to come back when I have access to my phone photos and post the pictures I took, but the identically priced Takamine and the Seagull were very comparable in quality. They both felt quite playable and had similar tone, with the Seagull being a teeny bit warmer and the Takamine crisper. I did like the Takamine's tuner better, but I already own a couple tuners, so that's not a huge deal. Decisions, decisions. The Taylor was better than both of those, but you would expect it to be at about $400 more. That Taylor was less expensive than I expected on the other hand. I had always thought for a Taylor, you had to drop at least 2K, but you can get one for in the $900 range. Makes it a tough decision. I could get a very nice Takamine or Seagull now or I could wait a couple months to get the money together for the better guitar. Hmmmmmmm.

I appreciate your input. Whatever I go with, Seagull, Takamine, or Taylor, I'll appreciate it. I'm very blessed.

Here are the photos of the guitars I checked out. Man, it's a tough choice. I'm still leaning mostly toward either the Seagull or the Takamine. They're both very nice. Here they are.
Seagull:



And the Takamine.......




These are nice guitars. I don't think I can go wrong either way. They were both easy to play and had nice tone. I like the Takamine's tuner a little better, and also its tone is maybe a smidgen better. But I like the idea of having a guitar that was made in Canada out of all materials from there. I also suspect maybe the Seagull could have a somewhat better resale value.

The Ibanez, on the other hand, is also nice and is less money. This Ibanez is much better than the ones they had at the other guitar store. The other store only had their low-end stuff. This guitar is very playable, but I don't think its tone is quite as nice as the Seagull's or the Takamine's. But it's also $150 less money.





I have photos of the Taylor also. As much as I want it, it's out of my price range at $900 unless I wait and save much longer. It was definitely the best one though.

Gotta say, hate the Seagull headstock. Almost as much as I hate the Fender Tele headstock. Someone clearly doesn't know what the Golden Ratio is or basically have any natural aesthetic vision.

I love Ibanez electrics, but I don't know much about their acoustics and well. I've never heard rave reviews of them either. That isn't to say they aren't good, just that the winds of song don't sing their song that I know of.

The Takamine is a nice guitar. This video looks good.



I buy most of my stuff from Sweetwater online. (I used to never do this, but Sweetwater changed my mind)

Anyway, this one at Sweetwater isn't sunburst, but it's basically the same guitar. If you plan on buying a guitar, reach out to Sweetwater and *deal* with them. I NEVER pay retail with them. When I bought my Taylor 414ce-R, it retailed at $2,199. I asked my rep what he could do for me. He came back at $1,915. I told him make it $1,850 and I would take it right then. He did and it's mine! That's about a 15% discount.

if I had to take any of that bunch, I take the Taylor of course, but if your budget isn't there. Ask Sweetwater what they can do. (15% off $899 is $764 or about $135 off!) If they STILL can't get into your budget. See what they can do on the Takemine! (15% off is $466)

Good luck!

EDIT: btw, that isn't saying you can always get 15%, but that's what I would shoot for! I told my buddy this and now he bought a Fender Strat HSS and he also bought a Taylor 414ce-R similar to mine and got good deals. He is sold on Sweetwater now too. (btw, you get the pick the EXACT guitar when you buy online. (they show you pictures of each guitar)

You can also message me and I will give you my guy at Sweetwater's contact.