Spot

Martins are the choice obviously of most professional players in folk and bluegrass. Gibsons tend to be the pro choice of many doing country, though you will see Martins there, also.

Martin's astute marketing and brand name recognition and reputation for quality have opened up models as low as the $400-500 range.

I have also been playing for 40+ years, 42 to be exact, currently own five high quality acoustic guitars all being vintage in nature and am a student of the vintage guitar market, as well as a pro player both solo and in groups. My brother, is a serious guitar collector, with somewhere between 35-40 instruments in his collection. I have no financial interest in Martin whatsoever, but can assure you that Martins are highly renowned and are blowing their competition out of the water in the new mid price range market as well as holding their own against higher end brands, Collings, Huff and Dalton, and Santa Cruz notwithstanding.

I have found that many players who do not like Martins are people who convince themselves of that as they believe that they cannot afford a model in the Standard Series (18,28,35,4X, CEO, etc.) I would be hard pressed to know what an "LL" is that you were referring to and in my travels and communications with other serious collectors and dealers, as well as many musicians, can quite confidently say that I never heard of them. This is not to say that "LL" might be some small, fine quality custom branded instrument. There are many in that category.