With an acoustic guitar, both in playing and manufacturing, there’s no hiding any sins; there’s no electronics or effects to mask anything, and no way to hide bad materials or workmanship. Furch (pronounced ‘furk’ in English) has been known in Europe, and recently have been making their presence known in America, and the Orange DC-SW that we got in to check out is an attention getter.
First off, it’s quite stunning right out of the box; with a sitka spruce top, and black walnut sides and back, it looked as if encased in glass with a super high polished gloss finish. It’s simplicity and minimalist branding of a single “F” on the headstock makes a bold statement, as does the combination of the maple binding and padauk purfling, which also adorns the rosette.
The neck is African mahogany, and the flower pearl inlays were also very classy, and looked great against the dark ebony fingerboard. With a 25-9/16” scale length and a 15.75” radius, it feels nice and big. For neck adjustments it features Furch’s CNR Dual action adjustment system, which places an “anchor” like attachment inside the neck heel. Overall, the fit and finish was excellent through and through.
Picking this up it really resonates in the player’s hands, a lot. It was very responsive across the entire fingerboard, with a very rich and complex tone. It had that nice big “D” style sound profile and maintaining that WITH a cutaway is certainly an achievement. The V shaped neck profile was soft and made for plenty of enjoyment without any hand fatigue.
Upper fret access was excellent with the cutaway — speaking of frets, we couldn’t find any specs on the fret size, but these did feel a bit small-ish. Not a bad thing in any playing sense, going across the fingerboard it was a breeze and the string tension felt nice and tight, which brought an active and snappy response. This is a pure acoustic guitar, so pure in fact, there are no electronics or pickup system on-board, so keep that in mind. But putting up a nice Shure MV7 mic in XLR mode around the 12th fret yielded great results, with plenty of room for a player’s personal playing styles and tonal choices.
OK, it’s very well done, sounds and plays great. But the big tipping points though are something of a personal choice and might raise some concerns; with a list price of $2988, it’s certainly not cheap. Especially as it’s by a company that’s fairly new to the U.S. market. If you start to play the compare-and-contrast game, there are some more known brands at comparable prices and quality, and some offer up a really nice piezo pickup as well. But acoustic guitars are a personal thing, and in the right hands this an excellent guitar overall. It’s certainly worth checking out as this could easily be a go-to instrument for a player looking for a great sounding, well-made D style sound, with stellar playability.
Highly recommended, and we look forward to seeing more from Furch in the States going forward.
PROS:
VERY well made, great sounding, excellent D-style cutaway.
CONS:
No on-board pickup or electronics
STREET PRICE:
$2988