Honest assessment of Peerless and Eastman archtops

[medblues]

I bought a black all-solid-wood Peerless Martin Taylor Maestro. It had a broken tailpiece grounding wire (due to flimsiness) which was easy to fix. Otherwise great fit and finish. Its fretboard is phenomenal and it is wonderful for fingerstyle playing. I enjoy playing it as often as I can. It has a 15" lower bout and 24.6" scale so very comfortable to play.

I played an high end all-solid-wood Eastman in a guitar store once and also found it to be pretty high quality in workmanship. The acoustic sound was not loud or particularly pleasing. The electric sound was good though.

[rob taft]

Well, I'll have a better idea of the subject next week as on Friday I purchased a Peerless Martin Taylor Maestro in blonde finish from Lou at Guitars N Jazz. I already own two Eastman El Rey 4s, one of them being assembled and finished (including installing frets) by Otto D'Ambrosio and the workmanship quality of that guitar is as good as any I have owned or played. The pickup situation not so much but that isn't Eastman's fault. On the other the finish is perfect but the fret work left something to be desired e.g. beveled too much on the edges and I found the pickup pretty dull so I changed that out. .

As I have become over the past two years an all fingerstyle player, I found the specs of the MT to be something that might fit the bill. So I'm looking forward to checking it out.

[rob taft]

Well, Yesterday I received the Peerless Martin Taylor Maestro guitar from Guitar's N Jazz. A positive shout out to them for the packing and setup. I asked the guitar to be setup with low action and .12s and it plays great.

The fit and finish is first rate. No complaints or issues. A very well built guitar. The fret work is very good but has a some minor rough edges at the ends but some of that might be due to the change in environments. Regardless not a big deal to smooth them out. The nut corners are a bit too square so I will round it off some more. I was prepared to swap the floating pickup out but it is not bad. Fairly thick and warm in tone so I will probably leave it alone. The MT only has a pick guard mounted volume control and I like having a tone control on the guitar so I will probably swap out the controls for a Schatten set in the near future. The guitar is very quiet i.e. no noise issues.

From my Peerless to Eastman production shop comparison I would say with regard to my production ElRey 4, I would give it a 7 out of 10 for fret work, fit and finish. The Peerless MT is a 9 out of 10. Very good for a production guitar. My custom shop ElRey 4 is a 10 out of 10. That said, the custom shop cost $1K more than the Peerless and it was basically assembled and painted by a great luthier (Otto D'Ambrosio). The finish on that guitar is as good as any I have seen on handmade archtops and the fret work was perfect. Simple things like well rounded and crowned frets and nut edges smooth and round are tiny things but if not done right can be annoying.

With regard to the neck, I was surprised that the Peerless neck is a bit chunkier than two Eastmans I own and the radius is a bit flatter 14" possibly. The neck profile is more of a D shape to the Eastmans C shape. Took about 30 minutes to get used the the difference. The scale length is 24.6 on the MT and 25 on the Eastmans, That doesn't bother me at all. I have large hands with longish fingers and am not really bothered by scale length unless it is too small e.g. Byrdland. My best playing (pick style) and best sounding archtop guitar (GBAA) is 25 5/8 and it plays like butter. A testament to Joe Glaser as anything else.

Acoustically it sounds about like one would expect for a small bodied, thick top guitar i.e. not that loud and rather one dimensional. Still loud enough to play for personal enjoyment. My custom shop ElRey has a pretty good acoustic tone for a relatively thin guitar but it has a much thinner top than the MT. That said, I didn't buy any of these guitars to play without an amp. I put TI round wounds on this guitar and I much prefer them over flats for finger style.

One reason I purchased this guitar was due to the nut width and string spacing. I play mostly all fingers and I love the spacing on this guitar. Just perfect for me.

The only thing I would change is the jack mounting. I much prefer on that is side mounted versus and the end of the guitar.

All in all I'm pretty satisfied with the purchase.