Morgan Live

Morgan Live Spruce Top

I've been playing guitar for 43 years. I play mostly electric guitar, but I do have one dreadnaught. I was looking for the best sounding and well-constructed acoustic guitar in the $300 price range that has a solid top. I also wanted a Grand Auditorium style, so I watched a bunch of reviews on YouTube and Orangewood Guitars were mentioned several times. Particularly, the Rey and the Oliver. I had never heard of this brand before, but the reviews all seemed very positive. I like the fact that their guitars all come with a nice, padded gig bag and are set up with brand name strings before they're shipped. After carefully looking at other options, I decided to take a plunge and order the Morgan Spruce Live. The guitar arrived 3 days later. My first impression was the guitar is very well constructed, and the satin finish is very nice. There were no blemishes or imperfections on my guitar. I did have to tune it since the strings were brand new. It sounded very good once I got the guitar tuned. The neck has a comfortable C shape profile with a stain finish. However, I was a little disappointed with the size of the frets. They are small and narrow! It’s an adjustment for me since I'm used to jumbo frets that you find on most modern electric guitars. On a positive note, there were no sharp fret ends and the frets were leveled. My only complaint was the frets were not smooth. I did a few string bends and I can feel how rough the frets were. As far as the setup is concerned the bone nut was cut very well, however, the saddle was too high causing high string action. It was about 3mm high over the 12th fret. Setups are a personal preference to each player and Orangewood strives to make their instruments very playable, but in my case the action was too high for my liking. If I paid for this setup, I wouldn’t be happy. It’s no biggie to me since I know how to setup it up myself, but it might be to a newbie who doesn’t know how to setup a guitar. To lower the action, I just replaced the stock saddle with a compensated bone saddle that I had on hand. The action was noticeably lower and it measured about 2mm. I tuned the guitar to pitch and checked the neck relief with my notched straight edge. There was some relief, so I tightened the truss rod an 1/8 at a time until the neck was straight. I tuned the guitar again and the action measured between 1.50mm - 1.75mm on the 12th fret. I also polished the frets and replaced the strings with Elixir Phosphor Bronze 11-52. I had to re-adjust the truss rod a tiny bit to compensate for the lighter string gauge, but it plays and sounds like a dream now!

Morgan Live

I tried out quite a few guitars, and was ready to bite the bullet and buy a Taylor 114ce ($800.) I heard about Orangewood and compared specs between the two. I figured I'd give the Orangewood a try. After a week, I went to a Taylor dealer and tried the 114 again. I honestly couldn't justify paying $500 more when the Orangewood worked so well for me. I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.

I love it doesn’t come tuned like orange would says they do but it’s not a big deal just use an app on your phone to tune, other than that sounds great