Aha, I didn't see this video.....I had watched an interview by one of the guys at Dream Guitars with Brad of Oxwood which was interesting but I get the impression he produces fairly small numbers of guitars.
Most of these individual luthiers or smaller boutique makers only ever produce small numbers. For a single luthier you might jsut be talking 10-20 a year (with 20 being the high end). Others can bump this up using shop workers and CNC machines and so on but numbers remain tight because of higher quality thresholds.
I don't think a higher quality necessarily means a better sounding guitar but a luthier can tailor a design to your own playing style, preferences to do with playability, neck width and so on. Indeed, it seems to me one of the skills of a good luthier is to be able to interpret your own preferences in terms of sound and playabilty. And we are all different. For me sound and playability are more important than decoration, which of cpurse adds time and cost — but for some people asthetics are very important particulalry when we are talking about collectables.
Of all the guitars around at the moment I would like to play, Boucher Guitars is top — simply because they sound astonishing in the clips I have heard. I guess my issue with Oxwood or Boucher would be what they actually sound and play like which is why I personally won't buy blind. That being said a good luthier — even remotely — should be able to translate preferences into one of their models, combinations of woods and so on. Around here and on many forums the fingerstyle guitar gets a lot of reference — great string seperation and so on. But you guitar style might prefer something less analytical !!!
At these forusm — and at specialist dealers — I've been lucky enough to play a lot of very high end guitars over the last years. They are all great but I can't see any preference in my choices for individual or boutique luthiers. In no particular order these are the ones that have stood out.
Santa Cruz Eric Skye OO — I've played two of these now. For me absoute perfection.
Casimi middle sized body — I can still feel it resonating!
Brook Baritone — played at the old Ivor Mairants. I very nearly bought it only to find it was snapped up the next day by one of REM.
Turnstone Guitars — small bodied, cypress top and cherry I think — now owned (or was) by
Martin
Adrian Lucas Pergola — all mahagony and one with a spruce top
Steve Agnew OOO — spruce and walnut I believe. Steve is a low profile luthier operating in Scotland but the only other traditional 000 I have played that has been as impressive has been from Froggy Bottom.
Lowden S cutaway — one of the new range — I'm not normally a Lowden fan but boy was this the most superb fingerstyle guitar.
Others would have very different lists. There have been many other great guitars from Taran, Greenfield, Kostal, Flyde, Bown and so on but for some reason these stick out — and they are all sonically different and would suit different style, which means they might not be for me. For ecxample, I used to play a lot of ragtime and country blues. Two guitars stand out as being stunning for that style, one from Froggy Bottom and one from Collings — but I simply wasn't looking for that sound at the time.
So, Oxwood could be superb — they certainly sound good. Whether it would be for you depends on a whole ,oad of other factors.
Of course, the elephant in the room is me and my playing. I'm not sure I have enough quality to have got a decent sound out of some of these and so maybe my own limitations as a player limit my price range even more than budget! For years I wanted a Sobell and even arranged to travel up and buy on 20 years or so ago only for a major piece of computer kit to blow up and which had to be replaced. I'm kind of pleased about this now as I, personally, find Sobell's difficult to play and if you don't get maximum enjoyment from it what is the point.
Wow, a bit of a ramble. I'm off to find a dark room!
I have to agree,I had the pleasure of playing a turnstone which was outstanding ,and way outside my budget.I have seen but not played a casimi and they are beautifully made.
I have a hankering for a bourgeois but again Way above my pay grade.