C.F. Martin D-16E Mahogany

Description

The Martin D-16E Mahogany gets its present and warm tone from its mahogany body and grand top. When you strike a chord, you are met with a full and round tone that is soft and pleasant in the treble. Its luxurious tone, combined with a comfortable dreadnought body shape, makes the D-16E Mahogany ideal for singer-songwriters seeking a guitar that can function as a solo instrument and sit well in a mix. The guitar's quality construction – which includes a scalloped, forward-facing X-bracing – produces a powerful and balanced tone. It complements the human voice beautifully and is nevertheless perfect as a solo instrument or as an element in a mix. And the built-in Martin E-1 pickup system amplifies the guitar flawlessly when used on stage.

The D-16E Mahogany's neck is shaped with Martin's Modified Low Oval profile with Performing Artist taper. It is a neck design that Martin uses on many of their models, and which is especially appreciated by performing guitarists who have long gigs or sessions. The ebony fretboard is silky smooth, and the frets are sanded to perfection using a Plek Pro machine to provide optimized playability. The Plek treatment is a process where the frets are leveled with high precision, giving you the most playable fretboard you can own.

With the built-in Martin E1 electronics, you can quickly connect the guitar to an acoustic amplifier, a recording audio interface, or even a PA system on stage. The E1 system's tone, volume, and phase controls allow you to amplify your D-16E's rich and warm tone while shaping the sound as needed. The E1's phase control makes it possible to eliminate unpleasant feedback in tight spaces where it is inevitable to stand near your amplifier! In addition, the E1 system has a built-in tuner. You can tune the guitar without any cable connection, so tuning breaks on stage and on the couch can be done without any problems.

When you play the D-16E Mahogany, you may notice that the body feels different from other Martin dreadnoughts. The D-16E Mahogany retains the same square shoulder shape that other dreadnoughts have – but the body is slightly thinner than normal. Instead of the traditional dreadnought body depth of 12.38 cm, Martin has chosen to give this guitar the same depth as a 000 model, i.e., 10.48 cm. This change affects the guitar in two ways. For the first, the thinner body tames the boomy bass response, which gives a "cleaner" tone on recordings. For the second, it helps the guitar create a more prominent midrange response. The smaller body depth simultaneously does not affect the room-filling tone that you expect to encounter in a Martin dreadnought.

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