Pete, your comments about the D-15 are encouraging. I picked up one the other day in a shop with Guilds, Martins, Taylors, Gibsons, and Takamines. It was the cheapest of the bunch at $600, and it sounded the best to me.

I have been fooling around with the celtic fingerpicking sound (Al Petteway, John Sherman, DADGAD tuning) and am ready to invest in a decent acoustic, but $600 is my limit. I enjoyed the bass response and the nice "ring" of the guitar. My problem is that I don't want to make a mistake. This is likely to be the one and only acoustic for me. Am I being impatient or should I make the jump. All this talk of Seagull and others has me wondering if I should continue the search. Unfortunely, I don't live in an acoustic guitar area, although I'm about 2 hours from Phila and Baltimore. I'm also not opposed to a used guitar. I've had good luck with electics. Thoughts are much appreciated.

Thank Cat for the tip on this thread.

Sandy