Oliver Spruce

gives the lie to the need for all solid handcrafted guitars to get great playability and great sound. Little background...I'm 66 years old, play fingerstyle. Leo Kottke, Bruce Cockburn, Fahey. Played classical for several decades. Switched to steel string exclusively a year ago. Really have gotten into it. I own a vintage 1971 completely handmade Yamaha, 3 Furch (an Indigo, Violet, and Little Jane), a Guild 2512 12 string, and an Ibanez baritone. Oh, and did I mention I spent 2020 learning from a legendary local luthier and made a 000 personally designed completely handmade all solid wood steel string? Made EVERYTHING except the tuners, frets, - cut the top, sides, back, joined them, binding, linings, sound hole inlay, bend sides, linings and bindings, custom carved headstock, purfling, hand carved neck, nut, saddle and bridge, Indian rosewood, Maine Spruce, cherry neck, waverly tuners, Macassar ebony fingerboard and bridge, TUSQ nut and saddle. Kauri inlay on back.
All abalone purfling. Instructor said it was the most beautiful guitar he's had a student make. Sounds really really good. So do my Furch, they are astounding...My hand made cost me nearly $4000 in instruction, tuition, and materials. Wanted another guitar to sort of bang around, keep in an alternate tuning. was looking at Yamaha LL series, , mexican Martins, Ovation. Heard Darrel Braun review this and was astonished at the sound on YouTube and couldn't believe the price. ($195). Well, it went up $30. Took a flyer on it.
Astounding. I'm afraid to play my handmade next to it because I gotta sick feeling this sounds better.Sound on the 4 treble strings is absolutely superb. Astonishing harmonics, resonance, and sustain. Recently was in GC and my local independent store playing Taylor, Yamaha and mostly Mexican martins. With the exception of the Yamaha LL6, this thing frankly blows them away. 5th and 6th strings are slightly quieter than the other four but still very resonant. Now, playability, First, the Ernie Ball strings sound terrific, but they're not coated and as a result squeak quite a bit. They're also a bit more difficult to play up and down the fingerboard because they're not coated. So I'd throw on some Elixir's or other coated strings when I change them.
Fit & Finish - very good to excellent. No glue squeeze out, no chips, no dings. Intonation...well, I hate to say it, but dead on perfect. Fingered twelfth fret and 12th fret harmonic are dead on on all 6 strings. That's better than my hand made. Compensated saddle. Tuners are very tight, and I like the rubberized knobs. All the bridge pegs fit snugly (there was one criticism about them popping out) and the frets are beveled nicely on the edges. I played each string from 1st to 15th fret and there's no buzz at all. Also another guy said that the frets on the edge of the fingerboard cut him...well, first of all you shouldn't be sliding your fingers against the top or bottom edge of the fingerboard and second mine are fine. If this is what their intro "beginning" guitars sound like, I can't imagine what the middle and top of the line sound like. And I started decades ago on a legendary Yamaha FG 150 and this sounds better than that.
I see people complaining or criticizing laminate bodies all the time. Trust me that's a joke. Solid top - now that's probably worth springing for. But my 3 laminate guitars (guild and the two Furch) sound as good as anything I've played, and sadly, better than my vintage all Solid Yamaha. My solid Furch Little Jane is almost beyond belief, but that is a $1000-2000 guitar. There are $10000+ guitars out there and they sound terrific, play and look great, but I can't imagine they sound good enough to justify the price - obviously, a handmade masterpiece is being bought for other reasons than just the sound, but ignore the snobs out there and don't be afraid to get an Orangewood. Now maybe it'll crumble to dust in 1-2 years, but i doubt it.
So that is my take within 1 hour of receiving it.

I love my Oliver Mahogany so much that I decided she needed a friend. So I ordered the Oliver Spruce. Now instead of retuning, I can keep the Mahogany in drop D and the Spruce in Standard. They both play and sound so good!

This is my second Orangewood guitar and the tone, service and build quality of both are excellent.

I recommended the Orangewood Oliver Spruce to a student of mine, which I currently regret. Within a few months he had really bad action issues, and when taken to a professional luthier he said there was a saddle issue. On top of that the luthier can't even figure out how to get the saddle out, as it feels glued in. Now my student has no guitar, and I have no student.

Amazing Guitar for its price