Colour me hypocritical, but I’ve all too often ignored the advice I’ve given to readers in these pages, namely: always try a guitar in person before you buy it, if possible. Anything less and it’s a roll of the dice whether you’ll click with the guitar you’ve bought sight unseen. And so it proved to be when I bought a Martin DR Centennial online from Coda Music in Stevenage recently. Let me start by saying that Coda’s service was amazing, and the used DR Centennial I bought from them was in beautiful condition and perfectly set up. And in many ways it was a great buy – a pukka rosewood dreadnought by Martin with some very nice added extras, including an Adirondack Spruce top, plus vintage-style forward-shifted bracing. Its top had also
