Guitar Nerds Anonymous

So I took a little trip to the guitar shop today to try out some acoustics...

I had a go on:

Gibson J-45
Martin D18, D28, HD28, 000-42 (the only smaller bodied standard series they had)

I was really lucky that the shop was empty and the sales guy was happy for me to have a go, even after saying I definitely wasn't going to buy a guitar today. I'd still like to try out a 00-18 and 000-18, but I think my favourite was the D-28. Honestly, though, while they were all definitely 'different', I would really struggle to actually have any preference between them at all. The electronics spoiled the J-45 for me a bit (personal taste) and I was a bit cold on the HD-28 (but that one also had electronics in it, so maybe it was throwing me off). I really expected to prefer the smaller body 000 - I almost ordered a 00-18 blind a while back when I was a bit tired of being locked down - but the dreadnoughts were 'fine'. I guess anything feels small after my EJ-200.

Prior to this, I'd only played my Epiphone EJ-200 that I've owned since about 2007, a battered old Talman, and my brother's Guild GAD-125 dreadnought. It was really cool to actually get hands on with a few different models, but I reckon I was about £2000 north of the 'diminishing returns' line. That said, I'm totally OK with buying into a guitar that brings most of its value in the history the model evokes for me. If I do upgrade from the Epiphone, it'll be for something at that level, I think.

I went onto Sigma Sports to see what the price of a D28 would get me. Not sure if it's helping to justify the guitar or just making me ashamed of past bike purchases.