i'm with you on that john! here in florida i'm surrounded predominantly with martins and taylors, and while they are fine instruments and i've played many good ones; however, their voice is very different from the "big three irish"... i havn't had the pleasure of playing a mcilroy yet, but as you know i've owned two lowdens and now one really sweet avalon...the closest american guitar that has the lush, open, angelic voice that compares to a lowden or an avalon imho is a goodall... as i mentioned in a previous post my custom made hog/cedar concert jumbo is incredible! i don't know if you all get much access to them but i think you would enjoy the voice of goodall for fingerstyle and strumming...so there is my top three; avalon, goodall, and lowden! now if i could just learn to play them properly!!!

i'm slowly retooling my old setup with protools and maybe in the future i can put up a comparison; but schools in and time is little with gettin' my boy learned although he's jammin' nicely on some blues right now!!! good to see your post john, hope all is well with your family. my oldest in the marines is now in moscow at the embassy if i had'nt told you already...God bless, riverdog out...

p.s. if you want to hear the piano-like sounds of a goodall check out Pier Lim on youtube especially covering L. Juber's "let it be"...this is very much what my goodall sounds like or actually goodall's signature tone across most his models and tonewoods; very responsive up and down the neck...and Pier is a beautiful, expressive player...i love L. Juber because he doesn't go over the top, he is expressive and allows the tone as well as the melody to move you. his version of "While my guitar gently weeps" is my favorite version...to me he is the jeff beck of the acoustic...enjoy mates!!!
