Tanglewood’s Sundance Performance Pro Series is the culmination of decades of guitar building expertise and research. Swedish master luthier Michael Sanden has designed Tanglewood’s new flagship models, boasting all solid wood combinations and sumptuous features on some of the most popular and iconic acoustic body shapes in guitar history.
The All Solid Wood Sundance Performance Pro X15 NS model is a bold, workhorse Dreadnought bodied guitar. The Dreadnought shape strikes the most even balance between volume, size and ease of playing. It features a hand selected premium AAA grade solid Spruce top, paired with genuine Solid Mahogany back and sides. An outstanding guitar for the professional player.
Designed by “hall of fame” Scandinavian luthier Michael Sanden, the guitar features traditional quarter sawn spruce bracing in a tapered style, using a combination of X bracing and fan bracing. This arrangement recovers an outstanding flexibility and tonality from the AAA grade solid spruce top, creating a much more stable top than standard bracing. The evenness of tone and ringing bell harmonics are testament to Michaels bracing system for sure.
The spruce was hand selected by Michael Sanden as it has a tone that makes it a very good ‘all-rounder’. Spruce top guitars have a wonderful blooming tone, with bell-like trebles and basses that are low and full but tend more toward the mid range. Sweet, and smooth, but not outrageously bright, yet with enough warmth such that it doesn’t sound thin. You will get an incredible variety of tones and timbres from a spruce top guitar.
The solid mahogany used for the back and sides is a dense wood, with a dark finish, and close grain. The mahogany’s density can add great ‘punch’ and projection, adding warmth, but with definition, and a ‘woody’ character. The combination of spruce and mahogany is one of the most popular, because it offers a tone that is very balanced, but versatile, lending itself very well to most musical styles. Besides serving to form the enclosure of the soundbox, the back and sides of the guitar also act as a sympathetic resonator whose oscillations contribute greatly to the harmonic mix.
The Mahogany necks are constructed with a traditional dove tail join. Mahogany is used as it provides a good longitudinal strength. They are C-shaped in a smooth comfortable oval profile that works well for most playing styles.
The chrome Grover buttons were chosen as Grover are recognised worldwide as industry leaders for high-quality machine heads.
Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze 12-53 Light E16052 Acoustic Guitar Strings were selected for the Sundance Performance Pro range. Phosphor bronze strings offer the most sensitive, expressive tone that brings out the very best in guitars—virtually taking them to a higher level of play. However, that tone can be short-lived. Elixir Strings has solved this classic conundrum by applying an ultra-thin layer of NANOWEB Coating to protect the string’s windings hence preserving the coveted phosphor bronze tone. Many players prefer the rich, textured tone of phosphor bronze strings. These Elixir Strings capture the sweet spot of that unique phosphor bronze tone and extend it 3-5x longer than conventional strings.
The guitar is finished in an ultra-thin, natural, polyurethane satin finish, which gives it a sleek, high-class look and feel.
