Hi Cumbrian,

no, I do not think I know everything about guitars,..........
By the way, English is not my mother tongue (I am from Europe), but I`ll try to be as accurate as I can explaining shorter scale - less sustain thing I was talking about in my previous post. I was referring to a simple physics matter, longer scale have some advantages as you can get richer sound in harmonic term, or should I say more complex harmonics, you know what I mean, and sustain is certainly better. Simply, strung wires 2 and 3 feet long and you`ll figure it out.

Don`t get me wrong, I am not saying that your J 45 is a bad guitar just because it has a shorter scale. I fully agree with you that   quality of tone, sustain,.......depends on overall craftsmanship. I am not saying that every single guitar with shorter scale is inferior to one with longer scale, some O or OO body style guitar would probably sound better with short scale due to the fact that it has smaller body length and with 25 and something inch scale the bridge will be placed near the end of the sound board which is certainly not good. But if we are talking about big guitars (body length, depth, lower bout,...) as your J 45 certainly is, shorter scale is probably not a plus. Why do you think it is? It`s hard to say whether any other J 45 with 25,4 (or 25,3 .....25,5.....whatever) inch scale would sound better because there is no two identical guitars.

Also, having said that Gibson made many not so good guitars in its history doesn`t mean that it`s not a good guitar company. I`ve done lots of research on the internet and many respectable luthiers would say that adjustable saddle is not a good thing on a flat top guitar as Gibson did in the middle of `60. Ladder bracing is something that was rejected log time ago as it was much inferior pattern to X bracing, correct me if I am wrong but I don`t know anybody in recent guitar history who made ladder braced flat top guitars especially with adjustable saddle. I mentioned that in my previous post just because some people buy guitars because of its headstock logo.
Let me tell you my story from March this year when I was in Miami, Florida. I was going to buy a Martin , 15 or 16 model as my budget was up to US $ 1000 . I had never played Martin before and I did some research on the internet before I decided to buy it. But I was quite shocked when I entered Sam Ash Music store and tried a couple of new D-15 and one D-16, was very badly surprised with those D-15`s , very basic guitar, bad action, tone wasn`t exceptional for $ 740 guitar (case included). Not to mention that the seller explained to me that all of Martins get to their store set up like that. I didn`t expect from a respectable guitar company like Martin certainly is to do such a poor job regarding guitar set up. Wood grain on the top had some flaws, it looked very strange. Because my hand was in such pian after playing the guitar for 30 seconds I asked the guy to set up the guitar for me and he just told me that I had to have it set up to a professional lutherie. Hey, come on, if Martin didn`t do the set up properly a dealer should do that, somebody surely does! Paying another $ 50 or so for a professional set up over $ 740 for that kind of guitar is just to much! That D-16 ( $ 950, case included) was a dead guitar, much worse that both of those D-15`s.
The next day I ended up with a gorgeous 2 year old, almost in mint condition, OHSC included, Larrivee OM-05 which cost $ 950 . I didn`t know much about Larrivee guitars at that momnet of purchasing, almost nothing, but my point is that headstock logo means nothing to me as long as a guitar is worth the money I pay for it, and of course I like it!   

No doubt Martin,..... Gibson produce wonderful guitars but I just think that you could find the same quality/sounding, lesser known guitars for less $$$ .
People do buy vintage Gibson (ladder braced , adjustable saddles, even second guitars) on Ebay for lots of $$$ just because it is vintage and it has Gibson headstock logo.

Cumbrian, I hope your J 45 is a nice guitar , so enjoy every second playing it!

Peter