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April 2004
Posts: 14
| i think that its the quality of the wood or something but im not sure exatly what it means.
ive noticed that as the price was getting high
those A where also getting high :rolleyes: not only in ovation guitars but also les pauls.
someone also told me that it means that the wood will get better with the age...
hope you can help me to clarify this subject |
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February 2004
Posts: 1634
Location: Warren,Pa. | Hey bix. You'll see this throughout the guitar world. It's not a strict standard, but a pretty good indication of wood quality. You can usually see this difference in quality as the price level of guitars goes up. Go to a larger guitar store some time and look at natural finished acoustic guitars. In the lower priced ones, you might see pitch stains( brown streaks running the length of the top); also, fewer growth ring lines per inch.
As the price goes up, less staining, more even looking color, tighter grain( more lines per inch).
Higher priced, color is uniform, tightest grain, lots of silk ( a luminescent cross-grain).
Ovations display this grade difference throught their model offerings. They will buy a pallet of top sets and go through all of them, seperating everything into 3 piles, A, AA, and AAA.
For instance, a Baladeer top usually has some pitch streaks( this is just a visual thing and, though less preferred, doesn't effect sound at all), relatively wide grain. I have a Custom Legend and a '97 Collectors - 2 of the highest quality (AAA) tops I've ever seen.
All SOLID tops sound better as they are played over time. None of the above info pertains to laminated(plywood)tops. IMHO. John <>{ |
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April 2004
Posts: 14
| thanks a lot!!!you made it really clear. |
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Posts: 555
Location: Wooster, Ohio | I agree thata my 97 has the tightest grain I have ever seen on a guitar, but I find nowhere, where it is said that this guitar had a AAA top?
Steve |
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January 2004
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Location: Florida | Does anyone know if there is an actual quantifiable set of parameters that says - this many rings = this grade?
Put another way, is Martins or Taylors AAA the same as Ovations, keeping apples to apples so to speak. |
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February 2004
Posts: 1634
Location: Warren,Pa. | It doesn't really work that way. They don't geta load of "certified" AAA tops. I remember asking Kim Keller about StewMac's AAA grade and "Master" grade tops. Each user of wood grades the supply they receive by a generally accepted set of guidlines, but there's some latitude. I don't think Taylor even mentions grades in their printed material, though they use lower quality tops for the 300 series,better for the 500 series, on up. Sometimes there are surprises...one time Ovation used Bearclaw tops for plain Baladeers because they got a lot of them in a pallet of tops they received! There was a time when Bearclaw figuring was considered a defect. Now it's a highly prized thing. No, the '97 Collectors doesn't say AAA top, but the tops they used for those guitars were some of the finest around. Just no stamp from the "grading police". |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | grading varies according to manufacturer. A lumber merchant may sell bulk stock as triple-A or whatever but the manufacturer will grade each set according to their own parameters. While most factors in wood grading are down to cosmetic features it is weight & stiffness which are far more important to the actual sound. |
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December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | As i understand from the tour, Both Ovation and Hamer buys AAA only then then re-grades the load of wood to AA and AAA. |
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Posts: 1634
Location: Warren,Pa. | I think that was Hamer. They make only high-end guitars. I have picts I took at the tour of the wood storage room, and there's a stack of "A's" there for Baladeers and Elites. John <>{ |
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what does A / AA / AAA top mean??