Blindfold Challenge: $300 vs $3,000 vs $30,000 Acoustic Guitar Battle!!!!!

The great blindfold challenge is back!!!!!!!!! Today we blindfold Paul (Mr. Acoustic Guitar) to see if he can hear the difference between a $300, $3,000, and $30,000 acoustic guitar. How do you think he'll fare???

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[LindaLooUK]

To my ears the HD28 is the nicest sounding by quite a margin. Some more blindfold challenges would be fun. 😁

[Dannick]

Wow nice work guys thankyou so much, you deserve more view and god is proud of you 😇🙏🏿🙏🌹🎸🎸🎸🎶🎶💙💙💙

Amen

[xetexuk]

For me, the 3 grand HD28 sounded better that the Excalibur, much stronger and louder. The cheaper Eastman sounded thinner, to be expected of course. Great test!

[ansgarness]

I have to say I prefer the HD28 over the Dracarys thing.

[toddchapin]

30k? You coukd buy allot of great guitars and still put money in the bank. Ill keep my hd28

[MikeHammer]

I would add that playability would be a dead giveaway if the person doing the ranking also was playing. That is unless the $300 guitar was professionally set up. And that, of course would substantially increase the price. Lastly, by giving away that the first pick was correct, guessing between the other two afterwards was greatly simplified.

[trollstjerne]

Well done Paul! I think HD-28 sounded the best, but i do like the look of the Excalibur.

[roytube]

damn that eastman can hold its own for sure though.

[stigmajosh]

My ear really enjoys a mahogany body over rosewood. I love my D-18!

[Frank-pepk]

This really takes me back to 1972. After my electric guitar lesson I told my teacher I was going to buy a guitar. He thought I was going to buy the 69 strat to have a little different sound from my 67 Les Paul. But no I wanted an acoustic. Shocked he asked me what I was looking at. That Martin D28 that I had been playing while waiting for my lesson. He told me to have a seat and went in the back. He had a bandana in his hard and blindfolded me. He then had me play 2 guitars. After playing both back and forth for at least 20 minutes he asked me which one I liked the best. I told him the one I was playing. He took the bandanna off and I looked what I was playing. To my surprise he had taped over the names. He then set it on the stand next to the other and asked me to pick. Of course I picked the one I was playing. Wrong it wasn’t the Martin but a Ibanez 450T. One of the pre lawsuit guitars 1970. Holy crap! I still love the guitar but wish I had bought the Martin because it has increased in value so much more. I had the &650 but paid $250 for the Ibanez. Price increase being the only reason. Even the Ibanez font looks so much different than it does now. But at my age and the amount of guitars I own, it just doesn’t matter any longer.

[elvis_chen]

I love the blindfold tests! Maybe add some mosaic effects to let viewers to join the challenge next time?

[andrewdunn]

The highest price guitar is not necessarily priced high because it is the best sounding guitar.

[gordonmunding]

It's interesting how many people here agreed the HD "sounded better"
I can hear a unique tone in the Excalibur.
But in a blindfold test I think I would have preferred the HD's wider range tone as well.

[paddyoneill]

2 was clearly a much fuller sound but I preferred the sound of 3 over 1😂

[everythingbobbywolfe]

I'd be interested to have the Eastman replaced with a gpc series

I played the d35, HD 28 and d28 side by side. Walked out with the d28. It ages well. Breaks in and gets that deeper sounding hd28 tone, with age. The HD gets a bit boomy and dare I say it... A weensy bit muddy over the years. Doesn't retain the punch of the "the Canon"

[Mrsitarman]

Great call on the acoustics! You nailed it! However, I am curious to know if each of the guitars had the same strings? If not what did they have?

Along these same lines, I've got an interesting idea for a question from an artist's point of view who would be the top sounding artists in that category? How does their guitar sound like this with no added dynamics or effects, and when recording a basic rhythm track, is there a gold standard sound formula to get the perfect acoustic recorded sound? The category would have to go from completely flat to using a pickup, to the sound with effects, and of course what effects tools would be best? Again an interesting comparison would be the top of the line Mic, pickup, pedal, plugin, and or all of the above?

And I know there is a huge amount of thought that would need to go into these questions probably starting from a list of Artist's song I would think Jame Taylor would be in that list... What are your thoughts?

[tangentz]

My 1970 Epiphone ft-150 bard made in Japan. Cost me 150.00 last year. Luthier refretted. Ebony pins. Sperzel type locking tuners. Bone nut and bone saddle. Has the most amazing tone now for a poorly reviewed guitar. And i have 2 other cheapies very old also. Epiphone and Ovation prototype. All sound fantastic. Go figure. Yes it took some investment though with the right guy!

[TheThinker]

Thanks for this interesting comparison. I listened with my eyes closed. I could identify the $300 guitar, but the two expensive guitars sounded similar enough that I wasn't sure which was which. I thought the $300 guitar sounded great playing single notes, but the chords were not defined as clearly.

[Aan]

Yes, Quinton you can make a bucket with strings sound good... This is

[TheGrasspond]

This is awesome guys. I am not sure I would have differentiated between the two Martins