How Montreal’s Godin Guitars strummed its way to the top

aristophon ,what Stud Muffin said. I was blown away by the quality of the build and the sound of the Eastman E10D.,enough that I'm looking at my other guitars and wondering whether I should sell them and find the similar Eastman models. I'm afraid to actually play the Eastman E20D or E40D because of what it might mean for my beloved Seagull Artist Studio. But I'm seriously looking at selling my 2007 Seagull Performer (even though it's the only cedar top I have and it has the QII system in it) as well as my Guild OM-140ce in order to finance an Eastman Spruce/Mahogany OM.

They're that good. For me, Seagull used to be the "best bang for the buck" guitar out there. Now I'm thinking it's Eastman. Luckily for me they're extremely hard to find around here in Southwestern Ohio.

I'm not sure I understand this.  How can hand made stuff be more consistent in anything vs CNC?

I worked with several different kinds of CNC machines and processes for 20 years and they are vilified unnecessarily.  One cannot acquire more consistency, reliability and accuracy on a regular basis than with the CNC machine.  They are a consistency seekers dream come true.

I don't think you could conduct even one test to show hand-crafted would ever be equal to or better than CNC for consistency.  Just about every industry in the world has proven this to be true. 

So.......maybe I'm reading or understanding something incorrectly here? 

aristophon, I own 4 Godin products (2 seagulls - 1 six-string and 1 12-string,) an Art and Lutherie, and a Simon and Patrick, and also own a Larrivee. The Larrivee is a small step up (IMHO) from the Godin products (in my life/price point the Seagull and Simon and Patrick are "7.5" and the Larrivee is a "9".) I am sure if I was to pay 5 figures for a guitar I could get better, but I also cannot justify the increase for the small improvement in tone I would get, because I would be at a point (again IMHO) of diminishing returns on my money.

This is why I say the CNC process is necessarily vilified, or maybe it's better to say just plain misunderstood.  Unless you've worked with them, I can totally understand the confusion.

Just because something is made with CNC machines, does not mean custom adjustments can not be made.  The CNC process does not mean "exactly the same" all the time.  It's the exact opposite actually.  

CNC stands for Computer Numeric Control, the key word there being "computer."  For all the different adjustments you'd ever want, you just have different settings you call up.  And for 1 time special situations, you input custom settings.  All this can be done to achieve the same results as hand-crafted, but again, just with better consistency, accuracy and reliability (no "whoops, I sanded too much on that one!" and whatnot  LOL).

If you watch any factory tours from Taylor, Godin etc, you'll see that they still tap tune, adjust thickness, etc etc., but they're just able to do it better and faster.

So, I have to respectfully disagree.  I think that if one thinks that hand-crafted could ever result in more consistency than the CNC process, then one does not understand the CNC process and/or has never done it.  The CNC process is not a static, inflexible process.  It's a process that has all the possibilities of hand-crafted, but with infinitely more consistency and accuracy.

Again, I know with text it's difficult, but this is lovingly said from a former CNC machinist. 

I agree to agree to disagree on the disagreement that we're in agreement about disagreeing on.   

And that's ok.  To each his own. 

Personally, my dream guitar is still a nice, boomy, scalloped X-braced, CNC and hand crafted Martin or Taylor dreadnaught one day.    That and a nice Toyota 4Runner to carry her in.  Ha ha!    Aaaaaaah.....to dream......