All in all, this is a really beautiful instrument.Īnd as for sound, this baby is a cannon. It could very easily have been done in the music store, not the factory. There is one flaw on the top of the guitar, a very small and shallow ding on the treble side of the soundhole. The frets are a little sharp, but not too bad. No sloppy glue residue inside or out, sanded well, etc. I de-tuned to double-drop D, then to an open G, then back up again to standard. Speaking of which, the Grover 18:1 high ratio tuners are nice they operate smoothly and efficiently. The fretboard abalone inlays are understated but attractive, as is the gold hardware.
The body and neck are bound in maple, and the top has some nice purfling. The neck is a 1 piece mahogany, and the fretboard is striped ebony, with a striped ebony bridge. The top is a solid cedar top, the back & sides, solid rosewood. The DR5500 is the (strictly) acoustic version. I wanted to the get the DR550CE, the cutaway version with the Fishman electronics, but I couldn't find one. Here's a stock photo from the Hohner website. All solid woods: solid cedar top, solid rosewood back & sides, 1 piece mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard, ebony bridge. Back on September 1st, I pulled the trigger on a later (albeit discontinued) model Hohner, the DR550. I don't take her out of the house much anymore, but she's the centerpiece of my meager collection of 7 guitars (4 acoustics, 3 Logan Custom Teles). That neck still plays like butter, and she has balanced tones and great projection, no doubt due to all the solid woods and the dreadnaught size. The other acoustic is my Breedlove AD25/SM acoustic/electric, and my Logan Custom mahogany Tele is in the middle.Īn older pic, of me playing the Hohner for my grandson Corbin (he's 10 now). The Hohner is on the right in the picture (in my left hand). Here are some pics of what I’m talking about. The only plastic on this guitar is the pickguard. Position markers are inlaid maple, as is the name on the headstock. The neck and headstock are also bound in maple. The bridge is rosewood, the body is bound with maple, top and back. The (my) 940 has an "aged close grain solid spruce" top, solid select mahogany back & sides, solid Honduran mahogany neck and an ebony fretboard. I'll put her up against anything Martin or Taylor has in that price range today. Bought mine in 1983 for $600, which is equivalent to $1,300 + today. These guitars were made in Japan from 1979 to 1985, IIRC.
#Hohner professional guitar serial numbers series
She's a part of that 900 Arbor series that David (bridgepinSr.) just mentioned. I've had her now for 28+ years, she's just great. I mean nice, really nice, quality guitars on the higher end of the spectrum. And I don't just mean nice entry level guitars, although that's certainly true as well. I wanted people to know that there are some nice Hohners out there. I started "Any Hohner love out there in TDPRI land?" as a means of correcting that problem. I have two and I'll probably comment on them in separate posts.Īs I said back 2009, many if not most references to Hohners I had read to that point were either apologetic or outright derogatory in nature. If any other of you Hohner owners beat me to the punch, well, that's just fine with me. I'll post pics and descriptions of mine a little later on, when time permits. So, I'm officially starting a "Hohner Owners" (say that five times real fast ) club thread. But since it's not, posting to it after long periods of dormancy could raise "zombie" accusations. At times I've caught myself thinking of my Hohner thread like a club thread.
Well today something else occurred to me. But I wasn't sure the interest was there, and so I never got around to it. So every now and then I would think about starting a Hohner club thread, and placing it in the Guitar Owners Clubs section. Since I have been a long time owner of a Hohner G-940 acoustic, when I started that thread I was thinking of acoustics, and so I placed that thread in the "Acoustic Heaven" section.īut since the name of the thread was "Any Hohner love out there in TDPRI land?" periodically TDPRI members would post about their Hohner (and Steinberger) electrics. A couple of years ago, I started a thread about Hohner guitars.