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just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
My ever-more-elderly choice pointing towards an open headstock parlour/00 spruce or mahogany top. Just about to start practicing now with a neck strain!
Despite not usually being a fan of bling, a bit of abalone/paua on these smaller instruments looks quite good though!
There is only 1 Blueridge BR-371 available that I can find in the UK at present for example. (Hobgoblin, Bristol). I have bought from the Saga stable of companies before, a Regal. (Blueridge is Saga too). The Saga business model is very much Chinese manufacture/old name branding, but I don't have a problem with that. The Regal (resonator) has been fine.
I had a Crafter OM yonks back - had abalone purfling everywhere, OK, it was laminate bacl/sides but still only £225
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
Crafter is Korean. The minimum wage in South Korea is higher than the minimum wage in the United States. Mind you, that still isn't much by the standards of places like the UK, France, Australia, Germany, Sweden, and New Zealand.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
(LATE CHANGE: yes, I got that wrong. I wrote it up properly in this old thread - https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/200912/bit-of-a-strange-one - and promptly forgot the details.)
Eventually Martin got sick of importing cheap Asian guitars and shut the whole operation down. I don't know why. Maybe they were already planning their in-house Mexican manufacturing venture.
Anyway, the people in Germany who had previously had the distribution rights (for a now-defunct brand) saw an opportunity and bought the brand name from Martin (who no longer needed it). The Germans then started importing Chinese guitars and selling them under the Sigma brand. I believe (without actually knowing for sure) that the German owners have stuck with the same Chinese manufacturing company ever since.
As you know, I refuse to buy Chinese-made guitars for ethical reasons. (Except for Yamaha, because they have a more-or-less credible sustainability policy.) But if I was going to make a second exception, it would probably be Sigma. The German owners seem like decent people with their heads screwed on, and the Sigma guitars I have played have been as good as anything I've seen around that price point and very often better.
As far as build quality is concerned, I would happily buy the Sigma equivalent of the Martin D-45 (SDR-45) and pocket the change to buy 5 more good guitars. The "fit and finish" of the more expensivem Sigma guitars I've handled is as impeccable as you could get without inspecting them through a magnifying glass.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
Also, although it’s gross generalisation, I believe manufacturers who have made it their specialty to produce cheaper instruments, may be leaving their comfort or competency zones when they go up the scale. Just like I am sceptical about cheaper Martins or Gibson/ Epiphones, at least as far as acoustics are concerned.
Yamaha maybe the exception to the above.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
https://cortaction.wordpress.com/about/timeline/
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/891184