Quote Originally Posted by markb View Post
I had a Larrivee parlour guitar from one of the early runs they made to use up "inferior" wood sets. This was when Larrivee had one plant and 16 employees iirc. The build was absolutely flawless and the "inferior" wood merely had grain inconsistencies like a bit of uneven figuring in the spruce top and some light striping on the ebony bits.

Their plain guitars are just beautifully made and I'd recommend anyone looking for a solid wood acoustic on a budget to audition the 03 series. It's nice to see their electrics are just as well put together.
I'd never heard that story about "inferior woods". Interesting.

When I first learned of Larrivée, it was in a guitar shop, from a bearded hipster who was a fingerstyle virtuoso. At the time the store was carrying full lines on Martin, Larrivée, and Seagull, and had a smattering of other new guitars. No used or consignments in this place at the time. He was not remotely vague in his recommendation... he would only show Martins to the guy that came in and said "I want a Martin, period." To the guy that came in looking for a high quality suggestion, a shopper, he would invariably recommend the larri's instead, not stating they were BETTER, but that they were as good as, at a fraction of the price. And in the case of fingerstyle, his absolute favorite guitar was the L03R, which is the Larrivée proprietary body style, in rosewood. (the standard L03 is mahogany). I've had a luthier tell me that he finds Larrivées a bit of a pain to work on because they are so lightly built that they are super susceptible to environmental changes, and some customers feel that his work doesn't hold up very long. This is exactly why many musicians love them.

those 3-series guitars can be found in the 6-700 dollar range pretty easily. Not bad when many consider them the sonic equivalent to the $1500.00 Martins and Taylors out there. Mine(acoustic) was an ebay purchase in '05/6. Love the guitar.