Guitar playing audiophiles, Martin or Taylor?

Having played guitar my for over 30yrs (since I was 6yrs) and sold guitars in my younger days (for some time) I have owned or played most makes and models vintage and otherwise. I have recently sold most of my guitars and currently have a great luthier building me two soon to be three guitars, so I guess you can see where I'm going. There are only two issuses. 1. What you want? Unfortunatley at your level it's even harder with what dimensions, tone woods etc to decide exactly on what you want and need but if you can get some help from an ubiased person that knows what they are doing it will help quite a bit. 2.Exactly how much are you willing to spend? I would strongly urge you see what TWL makes and what he can offer you for the money. Good acoustics are not cheap and customs are usually a bit more expensive than popular mass produced (mid priced) models but if you can find a good luthier and I do stress good luthier (and TWL sounds like he is) you should get a better instrument for the money.

Gags aside this is a good example for the smaller manufacturers as Martin used to play his own model Yamaha when they were paying him bucket-loads of cash to do so but has since moved to a small luthier Mike Vanden in the late 90's and with Mike designed the Vanden Martin Taylor Artistry and an acoustic model which I believe is called the Gypsy.