Martin just rebuilt the 16 Series, and this one is worth paying attention to. New finishes, new body pairings, and a slope-shoulder Dreadnought on a short scale that Martin has never built in its history. We brought in the launch, so you can play the whole thing side by side in Addison, Southlake, or Fort Worth.

What A "Refresh" Actually Means Here

The 16 Series has always been Martin's working-player line. All solid wood, built in Nazareth, priced under the Standard Series, and aimed at people who need a guitar that goes to gigs rather than sits in a case. That part has not changed.

What changed is almost everything on top of it. Martin moved to gloss tops across the series, which is a real shift for a line that leaned satin for years. Then it added a finish palette the 16 Series has never worn. Black Smoke, Cherry Cola, Blue Denim, and Cream are not colors you associate with Martin, and seeing them on a wall of Martins is genuinely startling the first time.

Underneath the finishes, Martin rethought which body sizes belong in the line and how they are voiced. That produced the guitar we want to talk about first.

The DSS-16E: A First For Martin

A slope-shoulder Dreadnought already behaves differently than the square-shouldered D most people picture when they think Martin. The shoulders taper into the neck joint, which reduces the internal air volume slightly and pushes the voice toward something woodier and more contained. Less thunder, more character. It is the shape that suits a singer who does not want to fight their own guitar.

What Martin did here is pair that body with a short 24.9 inch scale length for the first time. Scale length determines how much tension sits on the strings at pitch, and dropping from the full 25.4 inch scale takes real tension out. The practical result is a guitar that bends easier, fingers easier, and feels broken in before you have played it in.

The tradeoff with a shorter scale is usually low end, since less tension means less energy driving the top. Martin answered that with forward-shifted scalloped X-bracing, which moves the bracing pattern closer to the soundhole and frees up more of the top to move. You get the bass back without giving up the easier feel.

Satin solid mahogany back and sides give it punchy midrange and a controlled low end that sits well in a mix rather than swallowing it. It comes in Cherry Cola, Black Smoke, and 1935 Burst, and we have all three so you can hear whether the finish changes anything. It does not, but people always want to check.

00L-16E: Small Body, Real Output

The 00L is Martin's sloped-shoulder small body, and it is the one we hand to fingerstyle players and songwriters more than any other shape in the store. A smaller box responds faster to a light touch, which means quiet playing stays articulate instead of going soft and muddy. If you write sitting down with the guitar close to your body, this is the shape to try first.

The surprise with the 00L is how much it projects. A compact body loses some low end by physics, but the sloped shoulders and the mahogany back and sides keep the midrange forward, and midrange is what carries across a room. It reads louder than its size suggests.

Blue Denim is the outlier of the entire launch and the one that will get pulled off the wall most often. It also comes in 1935 Burst and Black Smoke.

GPC-16E: The One That Does Everything

Grand Performance is Martin's split-the-difference body. It has the width to push air but only 000 depth, so it stays comfortable against your ribs through a three-hour set. Add the cutaway and you get real access above the twelfth fret, which matters if you play lead lines or work up the neck at all.

This one runs the long 25.4 inch scale, and it is worth understanding why that is the opposite choice from the DSS. More tension means more attack, tighter note definition, and a stronger fundamental. Notes separate instead of blooming into each other. On a guitar built for versatility, that clarity is the point.

East Indian rosewood back and sides bring the deep bass and the complex overtone content rosewood is known for, against the vintage tint gloss spruce top. If someone told us they wanted one guitar out of this launch to cover everything they play, we would hand them the GPC-16E without much deliberation.

J-16E: Jumbo Volume

A Jumbo is the answer when you need to be heard. The larger body moves more air, which gives you volume, sustain, and a low end you feel as much as hear. Strummers and rhythm players gravitate here, and anyone playing without a PA should at least try one before deciding they need a Dreadnought.

Martin paired the Jumbo with East Indian rosewood, which is the right call. Rosewood's overtone complexity would get busy on a small body, but a Jumbo has the room to let it develop. Scalloped X-bracing keeps the top responsive so the guitar does not require you to dig in to wake it up.

Cream is the one to look at, partly because Martin has not run that finish in a while and partly because it is the only guitar in the series with multi-stripe top binding. Black Smoke is the other option.

Grand J-16E 12-String: The Big One

Most 12-strings are compromises. Twelve strings put enormous tension on a top, and builders either brace heavily and kill the responsiveness or brace light and watch the guitar fold over five years. The other problem is tonal: the octave courses add shimmer up top, but without enough low end underneath, the whole thing sounds thin and jangly rather than full.

Martin solved both here. The Grand Jumbo body gives you the air volume to produce real bass, so the chime sits on top of a foundation instead of floating unsupported. And the bracing is non-scalloped, which is a deliberate departure from the rest of the series. Scalloping removes mass to increase sustain and responsiveness, but with twelve strings already generating more sound than you know what to do with, what you actually want is clarity and structural stability. Non-scalloped bracing delivers both.

Play a full open chord on this one and the chorus effect is immediate. It is the most distinctive voice in the launch by a wide margin.

How To Pick A Body Size

If you take one thing from this, let it be that body size matters more than finish, wood, or model name. Here is the short version of how we talk people through it on the floor.

Play fingerstyle or write sitting down? Start with the 00L. Fast response to a light touch, and comfortable for long stretches.

Sing and strum, want a forgiving feel? The DSS-16E. The short scale and the slope shoulders both work in your favor.

Play a bit of everything, including up the neck? The GPC-16E. Cutaway access, balanced output, comfortable depth.

Need volume without a PA? The J-16E. There is no substitute for a bigger box.

Want a sound nobody else in the room has? The Grand J-16E 12-String.

None of that replaces sitting down with them. Two guitars that look identical on a spec sheet can feel completely different in your hands, which is exactly why we brought in the whole lineup rather than cherry-picking two or three. See the full 16 Series collection here.