The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

could any body help me find out about the A544 - whatever detail,specs or general info would be great. i just bought one and i am amazed at the sound quality for only 150$

You can find catalogues here

http://www.matsumoku.org/models/a-ap2_a ... _acou.html

Regards

It's amazing how much better 30+ year-old wood can sound compared to newer, more expensive guitars.

I have a 554 that's seen better days. The top on mine is fatiguing & bowing upwards a lot & the neck is giving out. This makes the action really high--but it also makes the guitar louder. If new ones couldn't be found so cheap, I'd restore mine--but it would be insane to spend the money for a neck set when guitars are plentiful & can be replaced for little money in comparison.

I don't play much classical music, but I practice the technique just enough so that I don't have to resort to some of the tricks electric players use to mimic classical sounds, & I used to play classical well enough to play selected pieces in weddings or garden parties--nothing special.

Anyway, the back & sides of my 554 are laminated rosewood. The back of my 554 is made of several boards joined side by side, & the grain of the interior wood is perpendicular to the the grain of the back lamination (IMO, this isn't a very good idea, but it is what it is). The neck is mahogany ("nato mahogany" & "eastern mahogany" are fancy ways of saying "less expensive mahogany harvested in South America"--I don't know whether it's inexpensive because there's a lot of it, because they're able to farm it, because it's easier to work, or because it's considered "inferior" to "regular" mahogany).

If yours is like mine, it has a thin, solid (it's two pieces of wood, but they're not laminated), fan-braced cedar top. That is probably the thing most responsible for what looks like a cheap, nondescript old classical sounding a whole lot better than most people would think. Solid backs & sides are pretty to look at, but they contribute relatively little to an acoustic's tone.

thank you slo hand, that was very informative. would you describe the 554 a student grade or ,as the add decrees, affordable advanced? not that it matters, but the action on mine appears great- tuning is reasonable,i am sort of hoping that this stays intact, even though its probably from the seventies

You're welcome.

If you compared my 554 to the construction of "modern" high-dollar, premium (furniture-grade) wood classical guitars, it would probably be considered a "good" (acceptable) student level guitar. I base this on the fact that the structural back (the interior wood) is made up of several boards running perpendicular to the the strings (& the back laminations, which run in the correct direction), & both the back & sides are laminated. If the top was laminated as well, I'd downgrade it to student level (or possibly even intro level).

If the interior boards were two solid center-joined boards, I'd bump it up to an "estudio" (serious, advanced student, or pro practice), although now serious classical guitarists (at least in the U.S.) expect estudios to be made of all-solid woods (they're usually less ornate with plainer-grained wood than concert level guitars).

Again, the sides & back have very little to do with tone. It's the top that counts, & the more freely a top can vibrate, the better the guitar. That's why solid (non-laminated) tops always sound better. The adhesive that holds the laminated top layer kills a lot of the vibration (however, this can be a plus on a hollowbody jazz box if it's made right).

The more wood vibrates (the older it is), the more the grain structure "loosens up", & the better it sounds. As long as the wood doesn't succumb to the law of entropy, the older a classical gets, the better it will sound. I got a little bit unlucky & got one with a top that gave in a whole lot earlier than most.

My 554 spent the first 15 years of its life in an arid climate, & that's probably what led to its early demise.
If yours is still in good shape, it ought to hold up for a long time to come. Just don't let it dry out too much--keep it humidified.

If yours has a solid top, you could take it into any guitar shop that sells high-end classicals, & I'd be willing to bet that you couldn't find a single new guitar in the shop that sounds anywhere near as good.

The guitar snobs would probably scoff at the fact that your guitar is an Aria & that it isn't all-solid woods, but it would bother them that their high-dollar wares couldn't compare to what $150 could buy.

thanks again slowhand! i agree. the more guitar i play the more i love the nylon. i have a martin dm which is about 15 years old, and i have a strat and an epi 335. the point being i have played alot of guitar over the last 30 years of varying styles and music. as i vintage, i am playing much more formal and precise. the melodic beauty of a bach piece and the harmonic potential of monk combined with immediacy and intimate, sublime delicacy of nick drake are the logical evolutions from hendrix, reed (jimmy or lou) or whatever sixties classic you could name. i would like to perfect a polyphonic technique and the mathmatical patterns on the guitar never cease to amaze me. i only wish i had begun in earnest way back! oh well old dog new trick. todd

According to the specs in this 1984 Aria catalog yours has a solid top and part of their Professional series :
http://www.ariausa.com/Archive/cp_class ... 84_05.html

I have never seen one....I have an AC-30, an older series.

That's why I left my "classification" of the 554 as open as I did. With Uncle MAT's "specifications subject to change" credo, there was no way I could definitely classify a guitar I'd never seen (therefore I classified mine based on the "credentials" dealers, collectors, serious players, & hobbyist players go by).

Most conservatory & classically trained rigorous students of guitar would consider it near heresy to play an instrument that wasn't old-school, all-solid-wood construction. In that world, if it isn't all solid wood, it's substandard. Higher grade furniture quality woods typically go into concert (professional) guitars, less ornate woods go into estudio (serious student) guitars. Sometimes, no matter how selective & patient a luthier is, a guitar built with the intent of it being a concert guitar will not deliver enough volume or tone, or an estudio will sound so spectacular that it will make it to the concert level.

When most of the people I know say "student" guitar, they aren't thinking about serious musicians (in the classical sense, where a player would devote his entire life to the instrument). The grading system for guitars used by "by the hour, one or two hour a week" students is an entirely different system.

I thought it best to put the catalog marketing department ad copy aside & give a thoughtful answer based on what I've learned over the years from too many people (teachers, players, collectors, & a few honest dealers) to mention.

Every manufacturer devises their own grading system, & it is typically set up as a marketing guide. There are so many Sherry Bremer (a U.S. importing company with questionable scruples) affiliated guitars that were represented as elite professional instruments (when in fact they were cheap mass-produced junk), there's no way I'd judge the grade of a classical guitar based on a description in catalog ad copy.

Thank slo-hand; very informative and interesting, to boot!!

Is it a sort of double top?