Buying an IRIS without playing

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by Biosphere

Trust what you hear in the YouTube videos is the best advice I can give. Many will say a recording cannot accurately reflect how a guitar sounds in person, and that is true if people are adding reverb to their recordings, but even on simple iPhone recordings you can get an idea of a guitar’s tone.

The fidelity of youtube demos to what one actually hears has been discussed in other threads and, in my experience, some do a (much) better job than others. The way that I judge this is by comparing what I hear on a recording with what I hear when I play the same model guitar being demo’ed. Granted, no two guitars sound alike, but if I own a guitar model x, and I hear a demo recording of guitar model x, and the sound of the guitar in the recording sounds like what I hear when I play my own guitar, I consider that more than a coincidence. Two demo channels that I have found do a very good job of faithfully recording the guitar being played are WantMe Sound (in South Korea) and The North American Guitar.

I have over thirty guitars, two of which happen to be Irises. This recording of an Iris CH sounds very close to the sound of my Iris CH:



This recording of an Iris DF sounds very close to the sound of my Iris DF:



Granted, I can’t play anywhere near as well as JoiL or Carl Miner, but the guitars sound like mine do. If anything, I think my DF sounds better than the one Carl Miner was playing. I don’t have any Halcyon guitars, so I can’t say how similar or different my Irises are to those.

Adam Buchwald got his start in the guitar world doing repairs for Retrofret in Brooklyn. He then worked at Froggy Bottom as a luthier for several years. He then branched out to create his own custom guitar company, Circle Strings. The Iris guitar company was born out of the idea to offer features of custom-made guitars without the custom-made prices. To do that, Adam streamlined process, limited custom choices, offered no-frills hardware as stock (e.g., the dreaded Golden Era tuners, etc.), etc. I think of Iris as the guitar equivalent of made-to-measure versus custom. Adam was later joined by Dale Fairbanks, who has a long history as a luthier in his own right, and continues to make guitars under his own eponymous brand. The Iris DF model is named after him.

I’m not saying every Iris guitar is perfect, or that you are guaranteed to like every Iris guitar that you play, but given what goes into their construction, they are a lot of guitar for the money.

[BlueBowman]

Originally Posted by pagedr

Having played a number of both, I can say that Iris guitars sound exactly nothing like Halcyons

Agreed. I own both, and they couldn’t be more different. Halcyon is voiced more in the “modern” school: reverby, amazing sustain, big bass but balanced, brighter and with a boatload of overtones. Very responsive and the loudest guitar I’ve ever played. Great guitar.

The Iris is firmly planted in the vintage camp: dry (less overtones), woody and warm, extremely responsive midrange, cavernous bass, clarity. Excellent volume, too. Great guitar.

Which guitar you land on will depend simply on what your ear wants to hear. These days my ear craves the vintage voice, so I’m enjoying those kinds of guitars more for fingerstyle. But my Halcyon is a great guitar if you like more overtones.

In fit and finish, I think Iris takes it by a country mile, but I’m not opposed to the satin on my Halcyon. They both are boutique/handmade guitars at very reasonable prices, and both are a lot of guitar for the money.

[guitargeorge]

Originally Posted by Biosphere

Trust what you hear in the YouTube videos is the best advice I can give. Many will say a recording cannot accurately reflect how a guitar sounds in person, and that is true if people are adding reverb to their recordings, but even on simple iPhone recordings you can get an idea of a guitar’s tone.

There have been recent posts by posters claiming a certain Chinese builder will be the best thing since sliced bread. However, all the YouTube videos had the guitars sounding generally thin and tinny. Owners were claiming these were the Chinese equivalents of Froggy Bottom and Goodall. However, my suspicions were raised because the builder had limited history, so I managed to find some and played them in person. I found them underwhelming, and not yet at the level of Eastman, another Chinese builder.

To give another extreme example, people go on about PreWar Guitars being the equivalent of 30s Martins. Again, having played Martin Authentic series, and even lower end series such as the HD-28V, I still find PreWar Guitars to be lacking the depth of Martin guitars.

I don’t buy into the Iris hype. I’ve listened to their YouTube videos. They sound like Halcyons to my ear. I wouldn’t buy one, and I am not adverse to being proven wrong one day if I do ever get my hands on one. But I would never buy one without trying it first. Unless you got $3,000 or whatever they cost these days lying around and wouldn’t mind taking say a $500 hit when reselling it if you don’t like it.

I am a big fan of Martin guitars. I have two very nice ones in my collection and I wish I still had the previous 3 Martins I had since 1975. But Martin's are very different from Iris in this sense: Martin produces about 150,000 guitars per year. Last year annual sales was 130 million and they have 500 employees and now some are built in Mexico.

On the other hand, Iris has a small team of American luthiers, I think about 13 now, and have produced about 1,000 guitars since 2018. It's probably more than a thousand now but I have not seen serial numbers above the 900s yet.

Martin, Gibson, Taylor and most others are factory produced guitars. Martin figured out how to mass produce quality guitars. They will soon celebrate 200 years of being in business, and that is amazing, congrats to Martin. How soon will it be before Martins are made in China because of greatly reduced labor costs? China is very capable of producing large quantities of good guitars as shown by Eastman. What if the Chinese Martins build a reputation as equal to or better than American Martins?

Iris is really a boutique guitar, offered at a fraction of the price of most boutique guitars. I bought all my Iris guitars online without seeing or playing them first. They are very consistent in quality and tone. I would have no problem buying more, sight unseen. If there is a model that appeals to you, buy it without playing it. If you like the dry, woody old-guitar sound, with a midrange that will cut through any mix, you won't be disappointed.

I also think Iris guitars makes me a better player. I can get away with more sloppy playing on a guitar with lush, rich, reverb-like overtones. An Iris is less likely to let me get away with that, with it's clarity and emphasis on the fundamental notes.

Iris is the real deal, no hype.

[sinistral]

Originally Posted by guitargeorge

I am a big fan of Martin guitars. I have two very nice ones in my collection and I wish I still had the previous 3 Martins I had since 1975. But Martin's are very different from Iris in this sense: Martin produces about 150,000 guitars per year. Last year annual sales was 130 million and they have 500 employees and now some are built in Mexico.

On the other hand, Iris has a small team of American luthiers, I think about 13 now, and have produced about 1,000 guitars since 2018. It's probably more than a thousand now but I have not seen serial numbers above the 900s yet.

Martin, Gibson, Taylor and most others are factory produced guitars. Martin figured out how to mass produce quality guitars. They will soon celebrate 200 years of being in business, and that is amazing, congrats to Martin. How soon will it be before Martins are made in China because of greatly reduced labor costs? China is very capable of producing large quantities of good guitars as shown by Eastman. What if the Chinese Martins build a reputation as equal to or better than American Martins?

Iris is really a boutique guitar, offered at a fraction of the price of most boutique guitars. I bought all my Iris guitars online without seeing or playing them first. They are very consistent in quality and tone. I would have no problem buying more, sight unseen. If there is a model that appeals to you, buy it without playing it. If you like the dry, woody old-guitar sound, with a midrange that will cut through any mix, you won't be disappointed.

I also think Iris guitars makes me a better player. I can get away with more sloppy playing on a guitar with lush, rich, reverb-like overtones. An Iris is less likely to let me get away with that, with it's clarity and emphasis on the fundamental notes.

Iris is the real deal, no hype.

For the record, according to a recent interview with Martin’s CEO, Martin makes about 140k guitars a year of which only 40k or so are built in Nazareth. That said, Martin builds many more guitars in a year than even the largest boutique builder. Given that the number of guitars Martin makes in Mexico is 2.5x the number of guitars made in the US, I doubt that Martin would open a factory in China, versus just increasing capacity in Mexico. And I doubt Martin would stop making guitars in the US.

On a separate note (no pun intended), I hope Janine (the OP) is doing well wherever she is, and has improved more as a player with all the time she saved not being on the forum.