Hi, I'm
Shmulik Dorinbaum.

Who I Am

I'm 44 years old, I have two kids, I'm divorced, and music has been the constant that's held everything together for two decades. I started seriously writing songs in my early twenties, and somewhere along the way the acoustic guitar became the instrument I trust most, the one I reach for when I'm working out a new melody at midnight or recording a demo between shifts of fatherhood.

My own recordings move between country, folk, alt-rock, and everything in the softer corners of that Venn diagram. You can hear my work on Spotify, most of it in Hebrew, which is where I live and write, but the feel is universal if you understand what an open chord is supposed to do.

The Artists Who Shaped My Ear

Everyone who writes about music has to be honest about where their taste came from. Mine came from voices that turned raw emotion into something you could wear like a jacket: Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave, and especially the solo acoustic Songbook era), Brandon Boyd of Incubus, Eddie Vedder, and Jeff Buckley. If you listen to what I write, you'll hear echoes of all of them: the big dynamic range, the wide-open chord voicings, the way a single acoustic guitar can fill a room when the player means it.

Why Strum Avenue Exists

I got tired of reading acoustic guitar reviews written by people who clearly hadn't opened a case in a week. Most "best of" lists online are thinly rewritten affiliate bait, and most YouTube reviews are 90 seconds of strumming over marketing copy from the manufacturer. I wanted somewhere I could send a friend, or my own kids when they're old enough to start asking which guitar to buy, and know they'd get an honest answer.

So Strum Avenue is that place. Every review here is built from evidence you can check for yourself: hundreds of owner reports gathered from marketplaces and player forums, the full manufacturer spec sheet, and side-by-side demo recordings, all filtered through two decades of writing and playing music. I don't claim to have every one of these guitars in my living room. I do claim that by the time a review is published, I know what owners love about it, what breaks first, and who should skip it.

How I Review

Every guitar is scored on five criteria, each on a 1-to-5 scale: Tone, Playability, Build Quality, Value, and Aesthetics. Overall scores are averaged and shown on a 10-point scale. The review itself is structured the same way every time so you can compare across models: overview, tone and sound, playability, build quality, and who it's actually for. When the evidence says a guitar is not worth your money, the review says exactly that. The full method is written up on the editorial standards page.

I never accept payment from manufacturers. I never write sponsored reviews. The only money this site earns is through Amazon affiliate links, and to be clear, that means when you click a Check Price button and buy through it, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Those commissions don't affect which guitars I recommend or where they rank on a list.

Get in Touch

If you have questions about a specific guitar, spotted a spec we got wrong, or just want to share something you're writing, I read every email. Drop me a line at editor@strumavenue.com, and if you're into Hebrew acoustic songwriting, my Spotify is always open.