It took me awhile to find the links to the sound samples. Under the "side-by-side" photo, imbeded in the text.

Actually, that's Sam's Type II parlor guitar, not his travel guitar. To my ear, the Go Type II sounded nice and mellow, but the Larivee came on a bit stronger. It also sounded like "slack-key" to me, which could toss a ringer into the comparison.

My Go guitars are both GO-GWs (deeper body, walnut back and sides rather than mahogany), one nylon-string and one steel-string. Talking with Sam on the phone a few months back, he remarked that he thought the nylon-string GO-GWs were somewhat louder than the steel-string ones. My ears bear that out.

I also talked to Sam about maybe getting one of the Type IIs with a full 2" 12-fret neck, slotted headstock, and nylon strings (Sam builds the nylon-string parlor and travel guitars lighter that the steel-string models, and with a different bracing system), but a little measuring revealed that I'd have the same problem with the lower bout of the guitar and the right wheel of my wheelchair interfering with each other. The parlor is 12" at the lower bout, the GO-GW is only 8" wide. Just clears the wheel.

Best thing for TJ to do, since he lives in San Diego, is to drop in, talk to Sam, and try them out. Nothing like "hands on" to tell you what you want to know.

Don Firth