Now I heard Michael say that "I don't work in a music store", but I can tell you my friends that he'd LOVE to! The only problem would be that then he couldn't afford to indulge his perfectly wonderful (in my book) habit. One of my secret ambitions (and I'm not joking) is to be a "pitchman" in a mall or a fair, selling vegematics or that "only on tv stuff". Now the funny thing is that had I actually done that years ago I WOULD be rich! I know it would have been more fun than singing in bars.
I played the Larrive and Taylor next to each other for a half hour and there just wasn't any comparison as far as sound goes. Now seed has a valid point about set ups. It can make all the difference in the world with the sound of the instrument. Now just to throw another monkey wrench into the debate, the very small Seagull is a close second in sound to the Baby Larrivee, but the best I've ever heard was the Martin "Songwriter". Can't remember the model number, but I have an old album with Conway Twitty playing one on the cover, and it was in a catalogue I had from about 20 years ago. I played one and it sounded excellent and cost virtually the same as a D-28. Gibson also made a very small sunburst guitar that I owned (George Hamilton the fourth had one, ditto Marty Robbins. Sounded okay, but it was SMALL!
Rick