Music Gear Review - Silver
Creek D160 Acoustic Guitar
Quick
story:
I was at an open mic talking to some friends and this guy walks in and
somebody says...
"hey man, isn't that your buddy?"
-me "gah! don't say that!"
-somebody [laughing] "what; why? what?"
-me [shuddering] "his name is Buddy"
Anyway...
Later on i'm talking to
Buddy and he's telling me about this Crafter (acoustic) guitar he's
thinking about buying. Then he says "you know anything about
Silver Creek (guitars)?" and i say "nope".
Then i swear not twenty
minutes later Buddy comes back over and says "that's it; right
there", pointing to the guy getting ready to start his second
song. We listened to him play two more songs and then a while
later we were talking to him and i was checking it out.
Build:
This Silver Creek dreadnought (D-160) had a spruce top, mahogany back
and sides, & rosewood fretboard. The tuning gears felt like Grover
Sta-tite - budget gears sporting that Waverly look.
To me the guitar
looked and felt like a $300 guitar, which is what it was.
How it played:
This guy chose to string up his Silver Creek dread with Elixir 11's,
which, ya know... why? But other than that it felt ok to
me.
Open chords weren't too
mushy or too brittle (common extremes with lower-priced acoustics).
Barr chords were not very fun to play, even with those
slippery low-tension strings, because the saddle height was too high
compared to the nut height.
Slide probably would've been ok... from the 6th fret up!
How it sounded:
Well out front it didn't sound that great but that had more to do
with his Seymour Duncan Maverick ($30) than the guitar itself.
With all magnetic soundhole pickups, string-to-string volume balance is
tricky and unless you have adjustable pole pieces, there's nothing you
can do about it if/when it happens to you. [it's that typical
blasting B string thing!]
Playing the guitar myself i have to say it wasn't bad at all from
what i could hear over everybody talking between performances.
Overall the D-160's frequency range was fairly uniform when
strumming open chords with a pick. It did have a bit of a
midrange-y sound but so do alot of inexpensive and even moderately
expensive guitars.
Because of the Elixir 11's he had it strung up with, everything i
played just sounded thin and dull - no bite at all.
Here's a youtube video of somebody playing a Silver Creek D-170 (same
guitar with rosewood back and sides):
Conclusion:
For the money the Silver Creek D-160 isn't a bad guitar at all.
I really did like it and i'd be totally happy if Santa left one of
these under my tree.
I
have to say that mahogany back and sides at $300 just doesn't
impress me nowadays.
You can get a Yamaha square-shouldered dreadnought with rosewood
back and sides for the same price. [not sure
