“Does it sound like a J-45? No. Instead, you get the impression that the instrument has been reimagined through the lens of a master craftsman”: Bourgeois Slope D Standard T/S review

What is it?

The Touchstone acoustic series is an alliance that’s oceans apart between Eastman’s facility in Beijing, China, and the workshop of Dana Bourgeois in Lewiston, Maine, USA.

And if anyone is unfamiliar with his name, Dana is one of the world’s foremost luthiers and his guitars sell at a premium price. The Touchstone Series came about when the Eastman guitar company – no slouches at turning out very high-quality acoustics under its own name – came aboard and a whole new streamlined production process was put into place.

It works like this: Dana and his team source, brace and voice the guitars’ tops in Maine and ship batches of them over to Eastman’s workshops in China. There, the backs, necks and so on are put together in accordance with a strict brief from Bourgeois back in the USA.

Quality control is tight, with every process carefully monitored to ensure that each instrument is of the best possible quality. Certainly, when we reviewed a pair of Bourgeois/Touchstone acoustics, we were mightily impressed by the overall sound and build quality, the OM scoring 9/10 and the dreadnought getting full marks with a straight 10.

Of course, Eastman and Bourgeois joining forces in this way means that instruments can be manufactured more cost-effectively, making it possible to buy into one of the top brands at a greatly reduced cost.

Dana Bourgeois is rightly proud of the quality that this partnership has achieved – and you’ll note that it is the Bourgeois brand name that sits atop the headstock on these instruments, rather than Touchstone or Eastman.

The Slope D Standard is a relative newcomer to the Touchstone stable and, as you can see from the pictures, has the air of a J-45 about it. It’s not our imagination, either – on its website Bourgeois states: “The Standard breathes new life into a classic design that has earned its reputation as the ‘workhorse’ of acoustic guitars.”

The J-45 acquired the nickname of ‘workhorse’ after its entry into Gibson’s catalogue in 1942, subsequently becoming a dependable go-to choice for instrumentalists across the decades. The principle giveaway is the sunburst finish, but maybe not so much the neck inlays or that smaller, squared-off headstock.

Speaking of the finish, we are told that in order to get the ’burst on the tops dead right, a craftsperson from the Eastman factory was flown over to Dana’s workshop in Lewiston to be shown precisely how it was to be applied. That’s attention to detail if ever we heard it.

Needless to say, the actual spec of the Slope D traces that of the J-45, with a Sitka spruce top (which has been torrefied to simulate a top that has been played in over time), and mahogany back and sides. Both body woods look to be of premium quality, the spruce with that characteristic cross-grain shimmer to it, the mahogany with an attractive, stripy grain pattern.

Moving onto the neck, here again the choice of wood is mahogany with what appears, at first sight, to be quite a slim profile. The fingerboard, which would be rosewood on a J-45, is ziricote here; it’s a wood that is sometimes referred to as ‘Mexican ebony’, although it is not a true ebony.

However, ziricote is often used as a perfectly able substitute for ebony and, although it doesn’t share that timber’s black appearance, is renowned for its ‘spiderweb’ grain pattern. At the headstock end, we find a bone nut with a set of Schaller GrandTune tuners and the subtle pearly Bourgeois logo.

With spec like this, you’d be hard-pressed to see where any cost-cutting has taken place, as we’re faced with what appears to be top-notch quality at every turn. In fact, the inventory reads like an instrument that would cost at least twice the price.

One difference from the J-45 spec we noticed is that the scale length is 635mm (25 inches) as opposed to Gibson’s 629mm (24.75 inches), and Bourgeois has trimmed a fraction of a millimetre off the nut width, too. These things are probably all but imperceivable in practice, but it’s interesting to see where these fractional differences lie, all the same.

Apart from the minutiae above, we have 20 very nicely seated and finished frets, a perfectly cut nut, a flamey scratchplate and a compensated bone saddle that sits amid a ziricote bridge, which itself is finished with a set of six ivoroid bridge pins.

All things being considered, at this point we were keen to hear what the Slope D had to say for itself…

Specs

• PRICE: $2,767/£2,899 (inc hard case)
• ORIGIN: China/USA
• TYPE: Slope-shouldered dreadnought
• TOP: Torrified Sitka spruce
• Back/Sides: Mahogany
• MAX RIM DEPTH: 124mm
• MAX BODY WIDTH: 406mm
• NECK: Mahogany
• SCALE LENGTH: 635mm
• TUNERS: Schaller GrandTune nickel with ivoroid buttons
• NUT/WIDTH: Bone/43.6mm
• FINGERBOARD: Ziricote
• FRETS: 20
• BRIDGE/SPACING: Ziricote w/ bone saddle/55.8mm
• ELECTRICS: N/A
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 1.9/4.2
• OPTIONS: None
• RANGE OPTIONS: The Standard range also includes a L-DBO 14 (£2,899)
• LEFT-HANDERS: Not as yet
• FINISHES: Natural High gloss with a satin feel neck
• CONTACT: Bourgeois Guitars

Playability and sounds

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The first impression was that we were right about the neck; it’s slim but a fairly deep and generous C at the same time, and so it feels instantly familiar in the hand.

Another, though, was that the 43.6mm nut-width might deter any adventurous fingerstyle, but we were wrong here, too, as any shortfall in width was never a problem during our play test.

Then there’s the sound. When we first opened the case, the guitar had probably not seen the light of day since it began its journey across oceans to the Guitarist studios and so we detected a slight compression in the trebles.

However, after putting it through its paces and replacing it in its case, when we returned to it 24 hours or so later, the sound had bloomed noticeably. It was as if the guitar had woken up from a long sleep and was ready to give us its all.

And what a sound it is. The chords are rich and full of harmonics, basses are controlled but full at the same time, and the sustain and volume are really quite remarkable. But it was our endeavours with fingerstyle that really allowed the Slope D to shine.

There’s a great deal of clarity and separation between the notes and the dynamics – playing soft to loud and vice versa – are very good indeed. There was no sign of brashness when played hard, and even the gentlest strum or fingerstyle was greeted with sweetness and a hi-fi response.

A good yardstick with which to measure the quality of an instrument is the amount of time we end up playing it after we’ve collected all the necessary data to write the review. Such was the case here – it really was that hard to put down.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

When faced with the idea that it’s possible to get an extremely high-quality instrument for a fraction of the price of a bespoke handmade affair, you’d be right to be cynical.

After all, we know that if something seems too good to be true, it often is just that. But that’s not the case here. Bourgeois and Eastman have managed to produce a guitar that sounds far more expensive than its price tag would indicate.

Seek one out – but hold onto your socks, because they’re likely to be blown off!

Guitar World verdict: Does it sound like a J-45? No. It lacks that smokey woodiness for which Gibson’s workhorse is renowned. Instead, you get the impression that the instrument has been reimagined through the lens of a master craftsman and has gained a voice that is not only its own but something really fabulous at the same time.

Hands-on videos

Bourgeois Guitars

Bourgeois Touchstone 'The Standard' Slope D played by Bas Schouten | Demo - YouTube

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