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Hi, I play autumn leaves with Heritage's archtop guitar. If you have time, please listen to it. Thank you.

I've had the chance to play the prototype a little while ago. The guitar is very light and resonant. Compared to the Benedetto next to it, it's a toss up. The bracing is carefully shaved. I don't know if it's tap tuned, but the plate was carefully carved and is thin. It takes significantly more time by the best luthiers at Heritage to make this. That was the goal, sort of like the Citation. Another reason the price may be higher than you expect is that there was quite a bit of time put into creating the design and execution of the first guitar. I'll bet Heritage makes 5-10 of these per year max. I would have to be in a much higher tax bracket to get one of these. The first reason is that I would be fearful of the first ding. The second reason is that the tone caters to those with exquisite tonal taste when in the hands of a master. That's not me. The design, and yes, the headstock, is elegant. When you see and hold it, you'll know you are in the presence of something special. I wish Heritage all the luck with this. It brings the company to a notch higher in the acoustic jazz world, for sure. Personally I'd like inlays for appearance sake. I don't know if that's guilding the lilly though.

The archtop market is different from the normal electric guitar market. There aren't a ton of companies making them. Most are smaller hand builds and most often they are made to order. While $13k isn't cheap, it really isn't out of line with other custom archtop builders. American Archtops go up to about 16 grand, Wilkie archtops start at 15 and go to $25k. Marchione runs $25 to 50K. The affordable archtops are from Eastman, running from $2500 to $5500. I do find it interesting that Heritage is staying somewhat active in the market with the Eagle, 575, and now the 517. It's a nice looking guitars, for sure.

This is one reason I almost prefer ANOS... at least I know they work. Some dealers pretty much won't even touch / test the NOS stuff.

Good to have you back! Nice tune!

agree it's good to see Heritage making big archtops again. And especially a new model! The Cadillacs of the guitar world

nice song, great jazz guitar tone, and great playing!

Easily affordable for the working jazz musician.

A speaker that is rated at twice the amp power rating has long been the safe standard, or the combination of multiple speakers equaling twice the rated power. I personally don’t think that is really necessary though. I have now built 3 6g3 amps and paired them with 65 watt Scumback M75 Speakers. I would use lower wattage but there isn’t one until you get down to 25 watts. The amps have varied in output based on the power transformer used and plate voltage supplied. The lowest wattage of the three was 12.9 clean and 17.4 cranked all the way up with 355 volts on the plates. That would be fine for a 25 watt speaker. The first one I built I used a vintage spec PT and had 440 volts in the plates which gave almost 30 watts when fully turned up, that would not be good for a 25 watt speaker. So from a manufacturing standpoint, a company would spec a speaker that can cover variations like that. Smaller builders may have much less variation or can even spec the speaker based on a single build. I’m comfortable with a speaker that is around 10 watts more than the amp is rated for something lower wattage like a 17 watt amp. I built a JTM 45 that maxes out at 42.78 watts (JTM 42.78?) and I’m comfortable using the same 65 watt M75 in that amp but I probably wouldn’t go lower than that. The last gig I used that amp on I had a 200 watt Eminence Em12n speaker and it sounded great, especially clean. There is zero speaker breakup but the dirty sound is just a little sterile compared to the M75 that gets a little breakup and adds some warmth to the sound. Some may prefer the 200 watt speaker though, to each their own. The amp has a master volume and I turned it down to the level the sound guy wanted, then when I got home I measure the output. I played the gig at 14.5 watts dirty and about 8 watts clean with a 200 watt speaker. 8 watts with an efficient speaker is louder than most people realize and with todays stage management makes amps like the JTM 45 obsolete without a master volume or attenuation. I have a 20 speaker that is going into yet another 6g3 variant I’m building only this is a single channel and uses 6k6GT power tubes and should max out at 10-12 watts and be perfect for most places I play.

Now that's a gorgeous archtop! And Henry Johnson is the perfect player to endorse it. Unfortunately it's priced over my pay grade at $12,999. https://heritageguitars.com/products/custom-shop-core-collection-h-717-archtop-guitar-honey-burst

I'm still in mourning over the closure of the "The Tube Shop", which is where I got a lot of ANOS (As New Old Stock Used) preamp tubes, as well as some NOS rectifier tubes. Yes it was all order by email and they would get back to you, but I got some great tubes at nice prices. There's still KCA Nos Tubes out there, which has some good deals on the ANOS tubes. JJ Tubes, unfortunately are now the tube of choice for a lot of amp companies, as they can withstand high cathode follower voltages, and are rugged. My Mesa Mark V was full of them when I got it, and I think my Friedman JEL-50 probably is as well. When I get some time I've gotta get rollin' rollin' rollin'. Keep those tubes a rollin'.