I love listening to instrument reviews and sound samples but from a practical point of view i have changed from listening for the best sounding instrument to listening for ones with poor tone that I would not buy.
I cant sound the same as the HMS team so wont get the same beautiful tone they do, let alone differences from recording and playback equipment. I wonder if recording to mic means the demonstrators can play more quietly and coax a better tone from the instruments.
The room and environment can make a big difference too, especially when playing in a noisy warehouse like shop compare to a quiet boutique.
I have just spent a year trying to find the perfect intermediate guitar and having played lots in shops there are some that sounded great on the internet that sounded terrible in my hands. There was also one or two that sounded quite different on Different visits, as I think i got nervous when the staff were listening to me fumble around an unfamiliar sized fret board. Once i liked a cheaper model over the more expensive model and was told it was because the cheaper one had been there much longer and had aged. That really messed me up, how am i supposed to choose an instrument if it is not going to be the same sound in a year?
The main thing i have learned from shopping in person is that there can be subtle differences between two instruments played alongside each other which i would not care about once i got the instrument home. Once heard, it is hard to get those differences out of my decision making. Now i am very careful only to play what i might buy.
I cant sound the same as the HMS team so wont get the same beautiful tone they do, let alone differences from recording and playback equipment. I wonder if recording to mic means the demonstrators can play more quietly and coax a better tone from the instruments.
The room and environment can make a big difference too, especially when playing in a noisy warehouse like shop compare to a quiet boutique.
I have just spent a year trying to find the perfect intermediate guitar and having played lots in shops there are some that sounded great on the internet that sounded terrible in my hands. There was also one or two that sounded quite different on Different visits, as I think i got nervous when the staff were listening to me fumble around an unfamiliar sized fret board. Once i liked a cheaper model over the more expensive model and was told it was because the cheaper one had been there much longer and had aged. That really messed me up, how am i supposed to choose an instrument if it is not going to be the same sound in a year?
The main thing i have learned from shopping in person is that there can be subtle differences between two instruments played alongside each other which i would not care about once i got the instrument home. Once heard, it is hard to get those differences out of my decision making. Now i am very careful only to play what i might buy.
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