Martin GPE Inception Maple £4,349

Maple has long been a bit of a puzzler for acoustic-guitar makers. It's attractive and fairly abundant compared with tropical hardwoods and is thus both more sustainable and less likely to be subject to restrictions such as the CITES controls imposed on rosewood a few years ago. And though instrument-grade maple has been growing harder for luthiers to get their hands on, both Taylor and now Martin have seen potential for it to be useful for more than just J-200s.

- WORDS Jamie Dickson PHOTOGRAPHY Matt Lincoln

The problem is that, when used as a body wood for flattop acoustic guitars, maple tends to generate a clear but not very complex note – useful for archtops perhaps but less so for instruments intended to be rich, resonant, long-sustaining tone machines. Martin's Fred Greene describes the problem thus: "Maple can sound a bit stiff. You get a strong, quick fundamental note... then it decays quickly and you just don't get a lot of nuanced overtones over the top of that."