By any chance, have you ever tried a Tonerite on your D50? My D55 sounds great, but doesn't have the volume or bass of my Taylor 810, however the D55 mids and highs are pristine. I was thinking I might give it a Tonerite treatment to see if it opens up a little more to unleash its full potentiel... Maybe I should start another thread about that!
HI Clyde, D30man had the D50, I've got a D40 but it's a Corona like his.
BY the time I became aware of their existence it was moot for me.
My first Guild, the D25, never lacked for volume and already had over 1000 hours on it by the time I joined here.
The 2nd one, the F65ce also sounded right for it's size and cut through the mix in a recording pretty well, and I bought the D40 without even playing it based on my experience with the first 2, besides which I wanted a Havens D40 and thought Fender might be on the verge of making Guild a 100% badge-engineered import brand:
I saw the Havens D40 in the same spring '04 price list that introduced the MIC GAD series, called Guitar Showcase, and rushed down to buy the one they had in stock, while I could still buy an American made Guild. (Fortunately my apprehensions have proven unfounded in the years since)
I'm a believer in the principle of opening up, and just like Tonerite says on its webpage, I think it's primarily due to how much playing time is on the instrument as opposed to simple chronological age.
So I certainly believe in the principle, but by the time I first heard of it a couple of years after joining here, I was already dedicating the majority of my playing time to the '40 to help it catch up to the '25, and it was actually improving.
I had a little test I used to measure time to silence after hitting a full string harmonic at the 12th fret.
Don't remember the figures off the top of my head but I think the D25 was in like the 14 second range, the F65ce was like 9 seconds (both archbacks, there's that sustain thing) and I think the D40 was pretty wimped out at like 7 seconds when I first conceived of the test to see if what I suspected could be measured.
D40's sustain was up to 9 seconds when I thought to check again a couple of years later, when I reckoned it had around 150 hours on it.
The D25 had only gained maybe another second in the meantime, but it had a "big moment" at around 250 hours, where the D25 and F65ce both seem to just gradually grow.
Anyway, I think the Tonerite principle is valid but I now if that "subsonic" frequency" thing might actually have unanticipated side effects on things like real NCL and hidgelue, or even Titebond for example.
Both NCL and hide glue crystalizes as they age, and a crystal can be shattered at the proper frequency, right?
So I'd satisfy myself that wouldn't be a problem before I'd try one now.