The Seagull S6 is a Canadian-made entry-level dreadnaught guitar with a solid cedar or spruce top.  By entry level I mean that this is about the least expensive guitar you will find that has a solid top.  The guitar is actually a very good sounding guitar and many experienced players on a budget will no doubt be attracted to it.  Seagull guitars are manufactured in Canada.

The S6 is available with natural cherry sides and back or with the sides and back dyed a dark faux mahogany (I believe the dyed version is called the S6+).  Personally, I prefer the natural look but this is purely a cosmetic issue and you should make up your own mind.  In either case the sides and back are laminated which is pretty much the norm in guitars that list for under one-thousand dollars.  I don't think that laminated sides and back are a handicap, anyway – it is the top and the bracing that are responsible for most of the responsiveness of an acoustic guitar.

There is a thin single-layer binding around the edge of the top, but the bottom is unbound and the edge of the laminated back is visible.  I wouldn't describe this as attractive, but on a guitar in this price-range compromises have to be made and I'd rather have this visible edge than a poorly-braced top or incorrectly cut nut.

The bridge is compensated and the intonation is pretty good.  The bridge and nut appear to be made of Micarta,™ though this is only speculation on my part.  In any case, the S6 sustains quite well and has good volume.  Once my son-in-law and I were jamming, he was playing my wife's old laminated-top Takamine and the S6 easily drowned it out.  The action is not quite as low and "sweet" as a more expensive guitar, but is certainly acceptable and is far better than that found on many guitars in this price range. 

In a year of heavy use the top has not shown any tendency to bow at the bridge, and I have not needed to adjust the neck relief.  Once new strings get past their initial stretch, the S6 holds its tuning very well.  In short, the construction seems quite stable.

The sealed tuners operate smoothly.  In a year of use I have only had to tighten the tension adjustments once (an operation that takes all of thirty seconds anyway).  The posts are tall enough to easily accomodate a "1+2" wrap on the bass string and a "1+3" wrap on all the other strings.

A model of the S6 is available with a piezo pickup and preamp.  I believe a cutaway version is also available.

The neck bolts on which is unusual in an acoustic but this doesn't seem to create any problems.  The guitar sustains well and in over a year of very heavy use the neck hasn't shown any tendency to loosen.  The neck is maple, with the obnoxious dark dye I mentioned earlier.  Again, it's purely a cosmetic issue and it might even look nice with the dyed body – but contrasted with the natural cherry body it looks a little ridiculous.

The S6 is available with either a spruce or cedar top.  The spruce top is more expensive.  The sample reviewed here has the cedar top, which has some advantages and a moderately serious disadvantage.  The sound of the cedar top is very nice, it seems to have a bit more depth than does a spruce top.  The combination of the cedar top and the hard maple neck results in a very even tone response, placing the S6 firmly between the "sparkle" of a good fingerstyle guitar and the "thrum" of a good rhythm guitar.

So what about the disadvantage of the cedar top?  Put simply, the cedar top is as soft as butter.  This isn't a defect in the S6, it's just the nature of cedar.  You can easily mark it with a fingernail, and it seems like breathing hard on it will leave a mark.  I take pretty good care of my instruments, keep the S6 in an SKB hardshell case, and the S6 has only been out of the house a half-dozen times in the last year, yet the top is still showing quite a bit of wear.  I would estimate that I have played the Seagull for about 250 hours over the last year.  There is a lot of wear in the band between the soundhole and the pickguard, with the wood between the grain being worn away at least 1/32" deep.  There are numerous fingernail marks on the lower bout, and I keep my fingernails trimmed and don't tap on the top a lot anyway.  There are several scratches and "trails" that I'm not sure of the origin of.  The area on the upper rear bout, where my inner arm drags against the top, is beginning to show "spalling" of the finish which will probably be followed in the not too distant future by wear in the wood itself.  In short, if you are looking for an heirloom to pass on to a grandchild, you should probably avoid guitars with cedar tops!

The finish is a thin satin lacquer.  It is initially very attractive and "acoustically friendly" in that it doesn't dampen vibration.  The manufacturer recommends using nothing but a cloth dampened with a gentle soap and water solution to clean the guitar, and to avoid waxes or other coatings that could dampen the top.  This is probably good advice and I followed it but now I am wishing that I had applied a couple of coats of good hard wax or something to avoid the spalling that is beginning on the upper rear bout where my bare arm drags against the top a lot.  About six months ago I began using furniture polish on the top in the hopes of preventing further deterioration and it seems to be helping.  (A better solution might be to adopt better posture that doesn't have my arm rubbing the top so much, but, hey, I'm too old a dog to learn any new tricks!)

Overall the Seagull S6 provides good "bang for the buck."  It's very good for rhythm accompaniment for a singer yet has just enough sparkle to get by for fingerstyle.  As with any guitar in this price range (street price of around three-hundred U.S. dollars) you have to shop carefully as quality is not as consistent as it is in more expensive lines.  I handled about a half-dozen copies in three or four different stores when shopping for this one.  All but one were certainly acceptable, even though they differed quite a bit in tonal response, ranging from what I would describe as a bit too dark to about right (this is quite subjective and what's "too dark" for me will be perfect for someone else).  The one that was not acceptable had a pretty bad rough spot along the lower edge of the fretboard around the 12th fret and the grain of the fretboard was badly twisted and gnarled as if the wood was taken from a burl.

The fretboard grain was fairly tight and quite straight on all of the others though the rosewood was pretty light even by today's standards.  The one I purchased and have been using for the last year has the thirstiest fretboard I have ever seen.  I keep a humidifier in the case but this fretboard drinks surprisingly large doses of lemon oil every time I change the strings.  When I intially purchased the guitar I thought it had just been neglected in the store and had dried out, but a year later it still sucks up lemon oil like a sponge every few weeks.  It has improved in that it doesn't become dry and dusty looking between drinks like it used to, but it still really likes that drink of lemon oil every few weeks.  I guess eventually it'll get it's fill and be more "normal."  Note that this doesn't affect playability, it's just a curiousity.

Update – December 2000 – The fretboard seems to have finally drunk its fill.  I have only had to give it one lemon oil bath in the last six months, and that's pretty normal around here.

The S6 is a very attractive option offering good bang for the buck, especially if your budget can't handle more than about three-hundred of those bucks.  It started with good tone and volume and has gotten better with use, a characteristic of solid-top guitars.  It's quite suitable as an entry-level acoustic guitar or for an experienced player on a budget.  I would caution the inexperienced player to take along a knowledgeable friend to help choose a good one, though, as consistency is a bit spotty.  Of course, that is good advice for a beginner shopping for any guitar in this price range.  You have to be prepared to spend at least twice, and more often three times, the cost of an S6 before you get into the sort of quality where a beginner can confidently snatch an acoustic guitar off the rack and be assured of getting a top-notch guitar.

John Atchley
June, 2000