One of the guys here had to stop playing this guitar when his hands started shaking: the response of this Double Decker is siesmic. Stefan Sobell makes an incredible guitar these days, and it’s obvious from guitars like this big boy from 1993 that he’s had his master’s touch for an incredibly long time.
This is the sort of guitar which, when played, can reduce a player to monosyllabic sentences. It’s hard to say anything more complex than, “Woah,” after you’ve experienced the sheer complexity of this guitar’s voice. The Mahogany neck features Sobell’s flattened C profile (slim and slick) and meets the body at the 12th fret, increasing the warmth of the mids and moving the bridge further down from the soundhole in order to better active the German Spruce top. The Brazilian Rosewood back and sides feature dramatic, twisting grain patterns and are still stable and crack free after 25 years of music.
The setup threads the needle for both fingerstyle and flatpicking, especially if you like going into dropped tunings. Just strum an open chord, and you’ll be amazed at the sheer volume of this Double Decker. The velvet-rich bass response pairs with sweet, fat trebles—and even when you dig in with aggressive attack the voice remains articulate and defined.
The Double Decker is a force of nature, plain and simple.