So, I've never been a review-basher, but this is CRAZY

mart

Hmm, it's ostensibly a review of a GP (I.e. "Auditorium" style body) that says the "top of the dreadnought" is coming away.

Checking back against the printed magazine review confirms my suspicions: this MR review is actually edited down from a review of three different guitars (there was also a cutaway dreadnought), each given THREE DIFFERENT star ratings. 

One of the dreads is given just two and a half stars for build quality, and three overall. So at least there was some reflection of the flaw in the star rating.

At first I thought the MR review had somehow mangled te original review, but no, it's just that in the middle of a section on the GP, Mick Taylor made this brief reference to the dread. One might almost suspect he deliberately left it out of the dread section of the review. Still amazing that he can go on to write "Martin is already a byword for quality, traditional acoustic guitars."

dilbert

richardhomer said:

My personal view is that low-end Taylors (which are also made in Mexico) are far better crafted than similarly priced Martins.

Agree 100%. The Baby Taylor in my avatar was played to death by everyone at a music fest in Toronto many years ago, it was beat to heck and back, put in every tuning you can think of and strummed, picked and slapped beyond where it should have survived. Other than a few cosmetic mishaps, it did and was was pretty much the star of the show. 

BTW, I got the chance to play it in Nashville tuning, well worth experimenting with as the nights grow suddenly dark .

dilbert.    

underdog

As mentioned above try a faith.

Samgb

That is crazy. It's an £800 guitar for fucks sake! That could and should get you something really really nice that won't have Martin on the headstock but will be beautifully made and sound great.
The rreview is actually really negative. It's almost as if an editor has bunged in a couple of nice things and then added a couple of stars to the review.

chrispy108

I'm sure I remember reading that in lots of magazines the reviewer doesn't give the star rating, the editor does.

Hence, the disconnect between the bulk of the review and the score, possibly given due to consideration of advertising etc.

xmrchi

This is the main reason I have not been a fan of Guitarist mag for years, for £5.40, you get half the magazine is adverts a quarter Joe Bonamassa and the rest biased reviews!

I was on the train a few weeks ago so i did buy Guitarist , I remeber I woul dread it multiple times but I read this addition once, it was awful, all of it Blues based  and 4.5 star reviews....never again, 

ICBM

mart said:

Hmm, it's ostensibly a review of a GP (I.e. "Auditorium" style body) that says the "top of the dreadnought" is coming away.

Checking back against the printed magazine review confirms my suspicions: this MR review is actually edited down from a review of three different guitars (there was also a cutaway dreadnought), each given THREE DIFFERENT star ratings. 

One of the dreads is given just two and a half stars for build quality, and three overall. So at least there was some reflection of the flaw in the star rating.

At first I thought the MR review had somehow mangled te original review, but no, it's just that in the middle of a section on the GP, Mick Taylor made this brief reference to the dread. One might almost suspect he deliberately left it out of the dread section of the review. Still amazing that he can go on to write "Martin is already a byword for quality, traditional acoustic guitars."

Good detective work.

Very poor editorial work.

richardhomer

I can understand a magazine not wanting to alienate a manufacturer. Martin (a company which has the most illustrious name among flat top makers) do advertise regularly and in times which are no doubt quite tough for publishers, they probably wish that to continue.

What I don't get, is why did they review it at all? If there was a concern about that specific instrument, they should have sought a replacement. If there is a broader concern about the longevity of a guitar made by combining those materials in that way, either say so overtly, or don't review it at all....

Fortheloveofguitar

The usual Music Radar and guitarist bullshit train rolls on.

Antique_Guitars

Everyone should call them out on it, post up on the MR facebook page and the Martin page get a good argument going!

richardhomer

Or maybe invite @ChrisV to comment if he's still around on here?

Jetfire

Apparently, Ive heard from someone in the know that they wont review bad products.. obviously, this is changing as they'll review any old shit now.. Another reason why I cancelled my subscription

indiansummer1

is anything on musicradar ever any good? their articles are pretty much universally crap from what i've seen - just thinly-veiled advertising

Iamnobody

Express your dismay to them direct.

It's a poor review. I don't buy the mag but presumably they still have a letters page?

I don't think for one minute you would get published but at least there's a way to get to them.

Someone got published in MOJO querying why their album reviews seldom got less than three stars. The response from the mag was that a lot of the poor stuff is filtered out early on and thus not reviewed...

mart

Incidentally, I've just looked through the whole of that issue of Guitarist and there isn't a single Martin ad. I'm not going to go through dozens of issues to check, but my feeling is that they don't advertise that much in Guitarist. 

And anyway, we have a review here that is flagging up very poor QC from Martin. Lots of potential buyers will probably have been put off by this, regardless of the number of stars they gave. I don't imagine Martin were very happy to see this in print.

xchrisv

@richardhomer it's hard for me to comment when the review was written well over two years ago... I wasn't working for the mag full-time at the time and upload/repurposing of magazine reviews on MR wasn't part of my role either. All that said, when a print review that references three products throughout is being edited by someone other than the writer into three standalone web reviews, there's plenty of room for error. Maybe that's what's happened here? I don't have that particular issue of the mag to hand here at home so I can't check... It's also worth noting that the overall rating in the mag is an aggregate score based on individual marks for build, sound etc... Now the breakdown doesn't appear on MR but I'd be willing to bet that this particular instrument wouldn't have scored well for build quality in the original mag review.

JDE

While I don't claim to know the ins/outs and wheelings/dealings of any gear publication, I am 99% positive i've not read a genuine (ie- truthful. Honest. Not total bullshittery) review in a guitar rag for the last 20 years. I even bought a few really old mags for some specific lessons off eBay and the review content was still bullshit, even back then.

axisus

I have to say that I have boycotted MR since they shafted everyone over the forum.