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ACOUSTIC ARCHTOP MODELS

There are several construction features that make Marchione's acoustic Archtops unique. Marchione chalk fits the neck dovetail joint to get a full contact suction fit -- this provides the guitar with its long ringing sustain. Final top tuning is performed with the guitar strung up to pitch; thus, he can fine tune the timbre and volume of the guitar while it is being played (no guessing allowed!). Marchione also hand carves the soundboard recurve all the way around the perimeter of the soundboard, including the cutaway, making the whole instrument acoustically useful. In order to maximize the instrument's sound, Marchione suspends the pickguard, the entire fingerboard extension, the tailpiece, and the pickup over the top. Marchione has noticed from studying cellos and other acoustic guitars that as soon as anything touches the top, the instrument's sound is decreased by up to one-third.
Archtop guitars are available as Steel String or Nylon String models. All instruments feature loft-dried cello grade tonewoods including High Alpine Engelmann spruce (tops) and highly figured maple (back, sides, and necks). Other features include an ebony fingerboard, pickguard, tailpiece, and bridge. Instruments are constructed with all wood binding and purfling, and have mother-of-pearl inlay. The specs of the archtop are a 16 in. (MSR $16,500), 17 in. (MSR $20,000) or 18 in. (MSR $22,000) body width, hollow body archtop, AAAAA Englemann Spruce top, highly figured maple back and sides, two f-holes, all wood binding, African ebony fingerboard, MOP headstock inlay, three-per-side tuners, narrow pickguard, fancy tailpiece, and hand wound floating pickup.