Sanden Guitars SRB-c, Style 2 review Written by Caleb Hill on August 31, 2010
This week we took delivery of a Sanden Guitars SRB-c, Style 2. There are many acoustic guitar manufacturers out there who, with the aid of an astronomical marketing budget and a large factory with distributors worldwide, set the bar for what people expect from a good acoustic guitar. It could be said that in some ways this robs us of experiencing what real hand-made instruments feel and sound like, and so the likes of these hand-crafted models are always welcome in the office. Opening the Hiscox Pro case that holds the Sanden SRB-c, the first thing I experienced was the scent of the wood. Michael Sanden selects the materials for each guitar he makes by hand, and the materials on this SRB (Small Round Bell) model are second to none. The back and sides are solid East-Indian Rosewood and the top is Sitka spruce with flamed Koa rosette and binding on this “style 2″ model. Tuning it up is quick and easy, the Schaller tuners reacting very smoothly. It has a pinless rosewood bridge which anchors the strings with a good breaking angle, but still allows for lots of sustain. While the body is gloss finished, the mahogany neck on the SRB-c style 2 has a satin finish which feels very comfortable and smooth to the touch. Playing the SRB-c is as comfortable high up the neck as it is lower down, helped, no doubt, by the neat cutaway and that satin neck finish. The fretboard is tight-grained ebony and the abalone butterfly inlay at the 12th fret looks great. The SRB-c produces a very warm tone and the smaller body articulates the attack nicely when played with a little gusto. In terms of amplification, the discrete B-Band pickup and preamp do an excellent job carrying through the rich tones produced acoustically.
Where one might expect a guitar of this size to underperform, though, it does not. For starters, the SRB-c certainly has good sustain. Sanden guitars are built for tone and maximum sustain, even down to the finer details like the finish. For instance, Michael Sanden opts not to fill the grain of the timber, as this allows the wood to resonate for longer, and it
does. The SRB-c body has a lower bout width of 380mm and its upper bout measures just 270mm. For a small auditorium-shaped guitar, the Sanden SRB-c has tremendous balance across the frequency range and projects a surprising amount of bass with incredible sustain. On close inspection of the finish, it is clear that the Sanden SRB-c has been made with the utmost care and precise attention to detail. Every meeting of timber is neat and clean, even on the inside. The label carries Michael’s signature, as does the accompanying owner’s leaflet – a nice personal touch. The Sanden SRB-c may not have worldwide distribution and expensive marketing campaigns, but that is because Sanden guitars are still built the honest, original way: by one skilful man in a little workshop in Sweden, with things like sandpaper and handsaws and chisels. These are things that one would expect to pay a little more for, but then owning a custom hand-built guitar like the Sanden Guitars SRB-c in today’s world of mass production is a very special thing.
About Caleb Hill Caleb Hill has written 6 articles on this blog. An early entrant into the musical world, I started on the Piano aged 6, and moved on to the guitar in my late teens. Since then I've spent large amounts of time in bands and recording studios learning as much as I could about guitars and what makes them tick. I currently play for an indie-rock band in and around London. I started at DV in 2007 managing guitars in the Barnet store and now, even though I no-longer work in the store, find myself learning new things about guitars every day.