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I recently purchased a Martin DSR2 acoustic guitar. It's a surprising value at around $799 with hardcase considering it's got a solid top, back, sides, and a hardwood sipo neck.

Anyhow, I loved the power and tone. It's really solid and the tuning stability really holds up to some heavy strumming.

But...

I noticed the action was pretty high above the 12th fret to the bridge.

At the first fret, the string height is 1/32 high. At the 12th fret, it's 3/32 high. At the bridge it's just short of 19/32 high!

It looks like perhaps the neck angle on this guitar was not set properly from the factory.

I'd like to lower the action, but I don't want to just sand the bridge if the geometry of the neck is not right as it is a brand new guitar and should have come with a proper angle to begin with.

Any advice or experience would be appreciated.

thanks in advance

Oh, I forgot to ask, if I did simply sand down the saddle say, a 1/16th would that affect the intonation of the guitar? What if I were to tune to E flat, as well?

A little more info:

In it's current state, tuned to E, the guitar is intonated perfectly. If I tune down to E flat, without making any other adjustments, the intonation is off.

Action on this guitar should be 4/64" for the high e at the 12 and 6/64" for the low e at the 12th. This is with 12's, add a 64th to both measurements for 13's. These are Martin specs for how it should be set-up.

However action at the 12th should be a function of having the nut slots cut properly first.... which is rarely done well if done at all depending on where you bought it from. These days with Internet resellers and even some national chains instruments are not always set-up even though to us they are brand new.

Action is adjusted at the saddle but only AFTER the nut slots are cut first and before cutting the nut slots the relief should be properly set with the truss rod.

Three step process as you can see. If you do not know how to cut nut slots there are lots of threads here on this and some pretty recent too, just search and you shall find I am sure.

Regarding intonation being off for non-standard tunings welcome to the world of acoustic guitars with fixed saddles. We can manipulate the intonation a bit, not much because of the limited saddle width. Alternate tunings are always a compromise of sorts as is the temperament of a guitar in general. Don't expect to be able to always set intonation on this guitar for any alternate tuning, that's not going to happen.

Regarding your question on neck angle being off. The angle of the neck should be such that the plane of the top of the frets is approximately at the top of the bridge. You can check this by laying a straight edge on the frets and extending it to the bridge. You can also do a quick check by just looking down the neck along the top of the frets and sighting where that intersects the bridge (this is complicated by the nut being in the way and the difference in radius between the fretboard and the bridge). You can also loosen one of the middle strings (D?) enough to be able to hold it down on the first fret and bend it down at the bridge end to rest on the top edge of the bridge. It makes a nice straightedge if it is still a bit tight.
The neck angle would need to be off by quite a lot to have much effect on the guitar but a new guitar should not be off by much.
Dave

Without knowing specifics on how you do your measuring, I'd say that the neck angle is appropriate given those numbers.
You could do some detailed investigation of how we measure and judge action, neck relief, etc.



Count on that being the case with any fixed bridge guitar. The slacker the string, the more it reacts to stretching as it is fretted.

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I'd have to agree with others and say that sounds like a well set up guitar with the possible exception of the nut. It's real hard to get an accurate measurement there. If you fret the first fret with a capo then measure heights at the 12th fret that's about the number you should have with the nut properly set up. My personal (and common) technique is to fret the 3rd fret and look at how close the strings are touching the 1st fret. I set it so that the first 3 strings are just barely, if not, touching and then higher toward the Low-E by a hair. It also sounds like you could probably lower the saddle if you wanted to get nice low action but beware you may lose some of that power and tone that you like.

Thanks for the input.

So I sanded down the saddle a bit, backed the truss rod off a bit, and tuned to E flat and it's pretty darn close to perfectly intonated, but it's still a bit off.

I took it to a local tech to see about having a bone saddle and nut put on and making sure it intonates properly, but it doesn't seem he wants to work on it. He tuned it up and said it was pretty close to intonated, but when I played a D chord we both agreed it wasn't quite right, but then he just said that that's typical.

There's got to be a way to tune to E flat and intonate properly with this guitar, and still have a somewhat lower action which is a lot more comfortable to play.

Any of you all in the Charlotte, NC area? Could you recommend someone in Charlotte?

He may not want to work on it because he thinks it doesn't need the work. In some respects he is right. If you tune your guitar up so that an open E chord sounds perfect then the D will be slightly out. If your ear is good enough then you come to realize that it is impossible to tune your guitar. On top of that you now want to tune flat which can cause even more intonation problems. When you tune flat and lower the tension on the strings it's easier to fret them to hard and cause intonation issues, granted this is more of a technique thing but the best you can hope for in tuning a guitar is to get everything just about right or close enough. Or you can tune to what ever key your playing in but then that means constant tuning and if you modulate in a song it will be whacked out.

Try different brand or heavier strings?

Maybe you need a truss rod adjustment. Assuming the neck angle is off before looking into something simple first Is like changing and electric motor that doesn't run before checking the fuses.

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It was built to be properly or as properly intonated as possible with standard tunings. If you want it intonated for anything else the saddle may have to be moved. That's the way acoustics work and perfect temperament is not something that guitars do either.

If it's a new guitar some of the issues will likely be high nut slots pulling things sharp when fretted. But.... perfect intonation for an alternate tuning just ain't going to happen for you without modifications to the saddle perhaps including saddle placement.

A two saddle system might help but again I'm not sure that the proper saddle location where it is now has the range to be intonated for E flat.