Thompson DMC-EIA

An Indian rosewood and Adirondack spruce guitar that uses Thompson’s new Modified Classical body.

December 3, 2025

Thompson Guitars is best known for building instruments based on golden-era American flattops. Many of the company’s models incorporate different wood combinations and appointments that depart from tradition, but the shapes and sizes are rarely a surprise. The recently introduced DMC (Deepbody/Modified/Classical) is an exception. As its model code implies, the instrument has an increased depth, X-bracing for steel strings, a 14-fret neck, and a classical guitar-style body (loosely based on Martin’s N-20). We recently reviewed the first prototype of the guitar, which was built with mahogany back and sides, and in this video, I demo prototype number two, built with Indian rosewood back and sides, but otherwise virtually identical.

About halfway between a 00 and 000 in overall dimensions, the DMC body has the proportions and outline of a typical Torres-style classical guitar. Like the first prototype we checked out, it has an Adirondack spruce top, in this case featuring relatively tight grain and a bit of striping. The Indian rosewood used for the back and sides is nicely bookmatched and on the darker side of the color spectrum. The instrument’s 14-fret neck, solid peghead, pin bridge, and teardrop pickguard make it clear that other than the body shape, this is not a classical guitar. Although Thompson used different back and side woods for the DMC’s two prototypes, the guitars share nearly identical appointments. These include Thompson’s “regency-dot” position markers (a mother of pearl ring with a bloodwood center in this instance), a rosette with a blue center ring, and multicolored, rope-stye purfling. Like the other prototype, the guitar had a relatively narrow neck measuring 1¹¹/₁₆-inches at the nut.

That Thompson’s luthiers decided to make the choice of back and sides woods the real difference between the two prototypes speaks to their meticulous approach to design. When too many differences are introduced, it becomes difficult to know what elements cause changes. In this case, the differences between the mahogany and rosewood examples are predictable. The rosewood model has a slightly richer low-end and more sustain. The overall character is very similar between the two instruments, and the EIA would make a fabulous guitar in an accompaniment setting, with balanced tone and respectable volume whether strummed or played fingerstyle. The long scale helps give it a dreadnought-like punch, and the body style gives it a feel that sets it apart from other mid-size flattops.

I had a lot of fun playing the DMC-EIA, and it’s refreshing to see a steel-string flattop design that is different without completely reinventing the wheel.