Part of me still thinks there's a little bit of "because we can" going on between these guitar-makers, and I don't blame them for trying to lure business from each other with similar designs and finishes, electronics packages. That's just business. I think the competition is good. Guitars -whether I like them or not- are great anymore. If you can't settle on a guitar, it's probably because there are too many choices. I think in a lot of ways, the whole industry has outrun and outgrown my tastes.

Still, I was curious enough to quiz the guys yesterday while I was in the store dropping off and picking up work, to see if they notice anything different. Mickey is a year or two older than me, John is 30-something. Mickey is a certified Taylor tech, loves them, happens to own a handful of Martin guitars too. John's a trained classical player, who mostly plays electric guitar now, completely brand-agnostic, with a huge personal collection. Especially vintage tube amps. He's that guy. Neither of them had any solid answers. Mickey kinda' rolled his eyes at the red guitars, but reminded me they weren't any worse than the teal blue or the fashionable printed art on some of them now. The technology is just freakin' amazing.

Mickey says he just goes where they point him. Answer the questions, give them a guitar, make sure it's in tune and a quiet corner to play it. He said he like to give them at least one similar guitar to compare it to, just puts it in a stand close by. John said he trys to figure out what guitar people want by what music they are playing. Basically, he's profiling customers for sales purposes. Jack has Mondays off, and that's who I really want to ask. That kid outsells everybody. Kinda' quiet, just has a gift for matching people up with guitars. Good player himself too. He's the youngest of the sales crew too, and perceptive about a good many things, so I'm curious what he thinks the attitudes are of the guitar-buying public. 

Thus far all I've gotten from my little social experiment is; they've got something for everyone.

Greg touches on an important point there; we are, on the acoustic side, anyway, in the golden era of cheap guitars.
When I was a pup, the lower 80% or so of the available stock was truly fecal.  The one I got at 13 was in large part responsible for my starting to play at 23.

Now, at any price point over about $150 you have to look long & hard to find something that isn't, at a bare minimum, playable.  And most of them sound OK, as well.  Do they play like a '60s Guild and sound like a '30s Martin?  No - but they ae serious instruments, not just something to shut the darn kid up about wanting a guitar.

On the other hand, Martin & Gibson acoustics seem to be slipping a bit, though perhaps not as much as they did in the '70s. Plus, Martin is now making budget models, something they never really did in the past.  Gibson does, too, but puts the Epiphone name on them.  Which is not a bad thing; I have said before the biggest difference there is that the Epiphone version of the SJ-200 is a fine $1500 guitar that you can buy for $750, while the Gibson version is a fine $2500 guitar that you can buy for $7500.........

I will add that, while I generally much prefer Martins to Taylors, I think Taylor does a much better job on cheaper models (and on 12-strings).

Peter

Well, I don't know what to think, but I do appreciate everything you guys are teaching me.

They sell at least one or two of the Taylor GS Mini models every week down at the store. $599, new, and there's almost always a used one for $100 less. I don't want one, not even a little bit, but I highly recommend them. That guitar is a fantastic value. They sound great and play great right out of the box. You can reset the neck with a set of allen wrenches and the correct number-coded shims. They'll do it for you under warranty at the store if you got it new. The electronics are optional and modular. The size is ideal for porch or sofa, but big enough to gig. Depending upon trim, they are quite attractive. Or plumb goofy-looking. Comes with a really nice gig bag too. But six bills for a great guitar?! Come on. They will never, ever be collectible or sought after. Probably just replaced by something and forgotten, but it's a great product.

I get a lot of them in the shop for repair. They get broken... I think because of careless handling combined with the light construction. And the lack of protection from gig bags. Or rather the inflated sense of protection folks get from gig bags. They are easy to break, but also easy to fix, and that's the advice I dispense when asked. It's the one negative.

My personal tastes are for more traditional things. Martin patterns from the 20's and 30's. Most of my current and past collection has been either vintage guitars or vintage reproduction guitars, with a few exceptions. I gifted a Taylor T-5s to someone earlier this year. It was a truly fascinating guitar that you could play acoustically but plug-in and enjoy as well. It had two humbucking pickups, the neck pickup located underneath the fingerboard extension, plus an acoustic sensor on the soundboard. All that with an onboard preamp and switching very much like a Strat. The neck joint was mind-boggling. One bolt, through the back, into a carefully machined mortise. Again, the angle controlled by numbered shims. Mine was an early one, (2006) but they still make these.

*here's a picture showing the mortised neck joint of one, the bolt, the wrench, and the neck pickup recessed under the fingerboard extension. This isn't mine, it's a koa-topped one I'd done some fretwork on before I got mine. Blew my mind. 

Love Taylors.  I have a mid 90's 810 I bought new, before the NT neck and (thankfully) before the expression system (never liked it).  Had the braces shaved.  Turned a really good guitar into a great one.  Not a big fan of the T-5.   The classic jack of all trades, master of none.  I think Fender came a bit closer with the Acoustasonic series, but still not there.

Bill, tgo

But there's always the 'wild card' of the variability of wood particularly in acoustic instruments:

When I worked retail, we had an 'acoustic room' (really necessary after Edward VH came along and our electric room would just s-q-u-a-l-l all day long). We were a dealer for Martin and St Louis era Alvarez (and the tremendously overlooked Alvarez Yairis, THE most overlooked fine acoustics) and Yamahas for our 'starter' or student guitars (the LL's had not come along yet).

We had one $189 Yamaha FG that SMOKED everything in the room.  We had D28's and 35's and you didn't dare let those customers hear that Yamaha, they'd have just walked for the tremendous price difference.  We had other FG's that were fine, but that particular one was an absolute stand out, just the luck of the 'wood draw'.

They're just like that.  You could line up 10 brand new same model Martins, consecutive serial numbers, 10 in a row.  They'd all sound fine, but a couple maybe a little short, and 1 or 2 that would be standouts.  It was just down to this one or that one.