Martin Road Series DC-13E Modern review: a stunning cutaway Dreadnought aimed at contemporary players
$1,499.99/£1,499, martinguitar.com
There’s a certain prestige that comes with Martin acoustic guitars, and for good reason. The near-200-year history of America’s oldest surviving guitar brand means that regardless of price point – and the brand caters from sub-$1k budgets all the way up to high-end Nazareth-PA-made instruments – there’s a faith and confidence that many of us guitarists have in Martin instruments before we pick them up.
READ MORE: Martin 000-10E Retro review: “it authentically distils everything that’s great about 000 guitars”
There’s no escaping that a Nazareth-made Martin will cost you a pretty penny these days however, but there are also plenty of guitarists that want things that the affordable X series doesn’t offer – such as all-solid construction.
The Road Series has been bridging the gap between the base Mexico-made Martin line and the Standard Series for three decades now, and the newly refreshed range aims to make that more diverse and interesting than ever.
Perhaps inevitably, much of the attention the Road Series refresh has got has focused on the Retro guitars – with their classic looks and aging-toner’d tops – but Martin is a guitar company that isn’t just about the past.
The Modern side of the Road Series is where you’ll find specs and features that tailor to people whose acoustic needs evolved beyond the 1940s. It’s here you’ll find progressive body shapes such as the GPC and Inception for example, but also where you can indulge in that most controversial of Martin dreadnoughts – the cutaway. And that’s exactly what we’ve got here.
Image: Adam Gasson
What is it?
While the Retro side of the series recreates the time-honoured Nazareth designs that have been fan favourites for decades – with traditional non-cutaway silhouettes, solid-wood builds and vintage-style hardware and appointments – the Modern side offers more contemporary ergonomics and wood pairings.
The DC-13E Modern features cutaway dreadnought body, with a solid Spruce top, though gloss-finished compared to the matte of the Retro, paired with a Koa Fine Veneer back and sides. You’ve also got a scalloped spruce X-bracing, high-performance taper neck which joins the body at the 14th fret, and an ebony fingerboard with 20 frets.
You’ll notice with a bit of digging that the newly revamped-for-2026 Road Series that each guitar in the lineup – on both the Retro and Modern sides – are labelled with either a 10, 12 or 13. This essentially relates to their degree of aesthetic luxury, if you will. Style 10 is the more basic end of the proposition, while Style 13 is the most visually decked out.
With that, with the DC-13E Modern, you get slightly more eye-catching – yet still understated – mother-of-pearl Diamonds and Squares inlays, white binding, and rather fancy looking skeletonized open-gear tuners.
All of this is paired with versatile Martin-designed E1 electronics, with controls and an onboard tuner placed conveniently and discreetly inside the soundhole. A well-spec’d Road Series Martin guitar for $1,500 is a strong proposition, but how does it measure up?
Image: Adam Gasson
Build quality and usability
Pulling the guitar out of its semi-rigid gigbag, the first impression is probably not the best one. This is a Martin aimed at modern players after all, with a cutaway to enable easier upper fret access – so why is the action so high?
It’s pretty good at the lower strings for cowboy chords, but things get pretty tiring when you venture above the 10th fret for chords and single-note runs. A quick eyeballing down the neck reveals that the culprit is predictable but annoying – a bow in the neck.
Given that the Northern Hemisphere has been on fire for most of the last few months, I’m prepared to chalk this one down to temperature-induced warping – I’ve not come across any other Road Series guitars with similar issues – and a quick quarter turn on the truss rod makes things much more flat and even throughout.
It’s a timely reminder that acoustic guitars are temperamental beasts and if you’re buying a guitar sight unseen from the internet, you may have to do a bit of basic set-up work when it arrives.
Following the neck adjustment, the DC-13E offers an otherwise stellar playing experience that you’d expect of a Martin acoustic. It’s a big boy, of course, but the cutaway helps to make this a more manageable playing experience, especially when seated. This is further helped by the Performing Artist neck with a High Performance Taper – which offers a wider fretboard the further up the neck you go – is well suited to modern players partial to both complex chord voicings and lead lines in the higher registers.
In terms of build quality, it might be a Style 13 model and therefore one of the more aesthetically fancy guitars in the Road Series lineup, but the extra visual appointments are subtle. This is a Martin guitar, after all; it can speak for itself without being too visually ‘loud’. The Diamonds and Squares inlays make for a beautifully sophisticated look, completed by the headstock’s skeletonised open-gear tuners. As with other guitars in the Road Series range, these can be a bit sticky, but they do a good job of holding their tuning and allowing precise adjustment.
While this might be a Modern guitar, the DC-13E doesn’t want you to feel like you’re fully piloting a piece of technology, so it’s a nice and welcome touch that the controls and tuner for the E1 system are hidden inside the soundhole for easy access.
Image: Adam Gasson
Sounds
The DC-13E boasts a wonderful tonal profile that you’d expect from a Martin Dreadnought, with terrific projection, sparkly highs and a strong midrange, although lacking ever so slightly on the low end front. The guitar otherwise passes the open G chord test with flying colours, and offers a superbly dynamic profile, with heavy chord strums as satisfying as subtler, more articulate fingerstyle playing.
Indeed, a good acoustic guitar feels like it’s alive alongside you, reacting in real time to the subtle dynamic changes in your playing. And on this front, the DC-13E quickly becomes an extension of yourself as you play it.
The Modern models in the newly updated Road Series are said to deliver stage-ready performance. And a large part of this is down to the onboard Martin-designed E1 electronics, which do brilliantly in retaining the timbre and character of the unplugged DC-13E, while allowing amplification in stage and other performance scenarios. I notice very little tweaking is required to nail down a stellar amplified tone – it’s pretty much plug and play, which is very welcome.
Image: Adam Gasson
Should I buy one?
If you’re a player who loves that unmistakable Martin look and sound, but also dabbles in more contemporary-style playing further up the neck, the DC-13E Modern could be just the ticket. A Mexican-made Martin for $1,499 would be a solid addition to any serious acoustic guitarist’s collection – or even the perfect forever instrument – and save for a slightly high action out the box which I felt needed adjusting, the DC-13E Modern is a solid all-rounder with pretty much all pros and very few cons.
Martin Road Series DC-13E Modern – alternatives
If you want your Martin a bit more traditional then the Road Series has you covered with the D-12E Retro ($1,349), or if you want something that really does offer the most modern playability and feel imaginable, then the SC-13E Modern ($1,799) is your offset-bodied Martin of the future. Of course, when people talk about ‘modern’ acoustic guitars, they’re often alluding to Taylor, and the brand’s similarly Mexico-made 210ce Plus ($1,399) offers all-solid build and a cutaway.
The post Martin Road Series DC-13E Modern review: a stunning cutaway Dreadnought aimed at contemporary players appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
