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Location: Yucaipa, California | wowie zowie what a guitar!
I've never see that top before!
Koa Top
check out the link at the bottom of that page for the Koa Top Elite
Somebody buy it for me.... puhleeeeeeze!
droolin tim |
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Location: NJ | I've always liked the look of koa. |
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Location: Yucaipa, California | ... I think I'm going to amend my "Dream Guitar" to a Koa Top!
wowie!
tim |
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Location: Minden, Nebraska | I know a few Koa top Ovations have been made. I have seen a couple on eBay.
Elias has been a long time Ovation/Adamas fan and some very fine and rare pieces have been part of his collection. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | Timster,
Make arrangements for you and your Bride to pick it up in Hawaii - how could she say no? |
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Location: Yucaipa, California | ...Hawaii.... hmmmmm now There's a very good idea!
Let me think about that one!... Koa Top Custom Elite Souvenir... yeah, that's it! :D
LaHaina Tim |
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Location: Converse, Texas | SAWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEt guitar! |
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Location: Scotland | The Koa Elites were Guitar Centre limited editions & used laminated tops. I've owned several instruments made entitrely from solid koa and I've come to the conclusion that as a hardwood, while it looks stunning and is great for back and sides, spruce or cedar is a much better top material. Koa is just way too dense. Laminated koa just sounds like plywood. |
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Location: Yucaipa, California | ... I bow the knee to our resident Sage....back to the Cedar top!
tim |
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Location: NJ | sage???
Don't let him kid you!
He's a WANK!!
It's that bloody accent that makes him sound so authorative. ;) |
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Location: Upper Left USA | I can remember John Cleese MC'ing an awards show during Clinton's regime stating that the British were superior because:
They spoke real english...
They only went down on one knee for their leader!
Koa is pretty, Carbon Fiber is stronger/brighter and Spruce is really, really decent. Cedar tops can mellow out the sound. Tim, talk to CWK about the 2 each 1/2 Cedar/Spruce guitars I saw in a previous post. |
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| I have actually seen (long time ago) an Ovation Elite KOA KGC like elias' with SOLID top! There may be some with solid tops. I have also tried a few Taylors and the Martin D42K with koa tops and they sound fantastic! Tacoma makes a koa toped too. I guess it's a matter of taste. Most people are used to the spruce but I wouldn't mind a nice koa top. The ones I tried sounded fantastic! :) |
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Location: Minden, Nebraska | Even though a few Koa top guitars were made by big time acoustic guitar makers, they were never aggressively marketed nor made in large numbers. The reason is that they don't sound as good.
Kaman had the wood, and could have made a Koa top Collectors' but chose not to. Better that Guitar Center got the ones they made, eh? The rest of the Koa probably went for the Hamer Mirage model which had beautiful Koa caps on mahogany bodies. Carvin has done the same with Koa, because it works well in that application.
The Koa top Ovations are rare and exotic, but their demand and price seems based on those factors more than how good they sound. |
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| .
Paul i agree. They are VERY rare, and they sound good! Guitar companies would never afford to build large numbers of them.
I recall a koa elite sold in ebay for $1800 or something like that?
Overseas (GB) the KGCs sold for over $2200-2300. |
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Location: SoCal | In 1982, I bought a Martin D-25K2 (Koa top, sides, and back). Absolutely beautiful and great sound. |
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Location: Scotland | Solid Koa sounds great, but it sounds very different to spruce or cedar. Personally I like the sound of Koa, but I like the sound of spruce more. If you've heard a mahogany-topped guitar such as a Martin style 17 or a good early Guild D25 then that's kinda the ballpark you're in with a Koa top, except Koa has more lows & highs than mahogany to my ear. I'm pretty sure someone who knows confirmed that all the GC Elites were panel-masters. And while a laminated Koa top is VERY pretty, it wont sound any different to any of the other panel-master tops. Ply is ply, and it all pretty much sounds the same. |
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Location: SoCal | I totally agree - especially for this or a solid top Koa, you need to play before you buy...it is different. some like it, some don't. Don't buy without trying. |
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| Paul, I vividly remember the one i had seen had SOLID top. We opened the back and we checked the wood grain and binding from inside. it was definitely a solid top. Maybe not all were laminates.... :confused:
I think that The OVATION!!! Koa looks way better
http://www.geocities.com/eliasargyris/KGC.html
than the Martin D-42K2 in the picture:
http://www.williesguitars.com/Pages/d42k2cl.htm |
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Location: Yucaipa, California | Cliff: sage???
Don't let him kid you!
He's a WANK!!
It's that bloody accent that makes him sound so authorative.
So, you noticed the Accent thing also! My wife is a Brit, so I have permission to say this: :rolleyes:
The accent usually falls into one of three categories:
1) Alistaire Cooke
2) Ringo Star
3) Eliza Doolittle
Where does PT fit???? ;)
tim |
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Location: NJ | Looking at the Group Photo, he fits into Al quite nicely . . . . . . |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by Tim Chapman:
The accent usually falls into one of three categories:
1) Alistaire Cooke
2) Ringo Star
3) Eliza Doolittle
Where does PT fit???? ;)
tim[/QB]
None of the above, try Mark Knopfler, Sting, Eric Burdon, Paul Rodgers. All from my neck of the woods. Oh yeah, you forgot Dick Van Dyke. |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by shar:
[QB] We opened the back and we checked the wood grain and binding from inside. it was definitely a solid top. Maybe not all were laminates.... :confused:
This is hardly conclusive. I'm not saying that they you are wrong,, but the plys may all have been Koa. The only way to tell is by looking at end-grain which is exposed at the sound hole (or holes) where you can clearly see the alternating grain of the plys, and this is impossible to do without sanding away the black dye on the Elite soundholes. I've seen jap guitars with allegedly "solid" Rosewood backs & sides where the inner & outer plys match, but when I've pulled out the endpin to ream for a jack-socket the telltale plys have been there. |
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| Paul, you may be right, i don't know. we could ask the guys at the factory i guess..if they know. The one i've seen was in for service at matt umanov guitars shop in NY, a long time ago. I was visiting a friend of mine who used to work in the store. The guys at the shop were very impressed with the elite koa, and they claimed that the top was solid. i guess they knew what they were talking about... :cool: |
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Location: NJ | run |
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Location: Fayetteville, NC | Al,
It's More like Run For your Life! :D |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by shar:
The guys at the shop were very impressed with the elite koa, and they claimed that the top was solid. i guess they knew what they were talking about... :cool:
Guys in guitar stores who know what they're talking about? Wow! what a great concept, maybe some of them should try it.
Cliff, It's "wanker" not "wank" if you're going to be offensive in the Queen's English please try to be grammatically correct. |
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| I meant the guys at the shop, not the sales :)
don't you have that in UK?
:D :D :D
Hey what time is it in UK now? |
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Location: Lafayette, Louisiana | Just because you remove the back plate and see wood grain that looks like the top does not mean it is a solid top. On the 2002 collectors, I took the back plate off, and the grain looked just like the top. Kim Keller told me the top was African Cherry/Birch/African Cherry laminate. I agree with Paul T. VERY FEW guys in music stores know much about Ovations! |
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| cool :cool: |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | WOW
I was an expert on KOA wood instruments, having had the opportunity to buy a custom made Koa lap Dobro steel from John Dopyro in Escondido, CA in the 70's. Koa was a Hawiaiin Steel guitar wood in the 50's and 60's not noted for its resonence but a beautiful wood to support an electric pickup, one that Les Paul and Leo Fender would value but Martin would reject. In other words a beautiful backing for an electric, a KOA Les Paul would be great, but a wood that has NO acoustic properties.
Bailey |
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Location: Scotland | The acoustic properties of Koa are comparable to similar hardwoods such as Rosewood & Walnut. Koa is a fine choice for back and sides, not only for it's appearance but also for it's acoustic performance. Far from rejecting Koa, Martin have often used Koa for their guitars, for tops as well as rims & backs. Many of their "H" suffix (Hawaiian) guitars were Koa, many of which later owners instaled frets and a low nut for regular playing, and Martin made thousands of Koa ukes. Weissenborn (And his other brand Kona) were mostly all-koa and their sound is legendary. Koa makes fine sounding acoustic guitars, but to get back to my original point, as a top material it doesn't sound "worse" than spruce, but it does sound very different. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Koa is a nice wood for guitars but I've found that it has limited effectiveness. As Paul T states, spruce sounds better. I've found that little guitars sound good in Koa but not big ones. I had a D-42K (spruce top, koa B&S)and it was nothing special. I looked at the all Koa Martin D's and again, nada. I had a jumbo Collings, all curley Koa and it just didn't get it either. Now I also have a C-10 Collings all curley koa and that is great. (Like a B-25 gibson body size) I also recently picked up a '31 O-18K Martin and it's a wonderful guitar for fingerstyle things, bright and very responsive. A friend has a "28 O-28K and it's the same.
There's my two cents. |
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| paul, the acoustic properties of wood is a interesting subject; what's a good source for study or research on that? i've seen so many different guitar tops, but it seems most are for cosmetics rather than acoustics or harmonics...
steve |
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Location: Scotland | Steve, I'm not sure where to find research material. I've been around instruments & guitar builders for so long, and read so much stuff over the years, but I'm no expert. I guess there must be a ton of material on the web. www.frets.com might be a good place to start. |
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| Here is another one:
http://www.acousticfingerstyle.com/
;) |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | And another two cents, a Weissenborn that is NOT made from Koa just won't sound as good. |
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Location: Scotland | I have a 2 Weissenborn replicas in stock at the moment. One is all Koa and sounds absolutely stunning, one is all mahogany and sounds pretty good by comparison, bearing in mind that nothing else sounds like a Weissenborn. The Koa one is almost 3 times the price of the Mahogany |
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Location: Fayetteville, NC | I have a Friend who started playing guitar on an entry level Epiphone. After playing around and getting better about a year later he got a great deal on a new Koa Model alvarez. he still has it along with two Spruce top taylors. I've played that Alvarez. The top was Solid Koa the back and sides Looked Laminate. The Sound was good. Just Different from Spruce .(Which is What I Prefer)
Even after 2 Taylor purchases(One a Black with Flame Collecors edition) hge still refuses to part with his Alvarez.
For the Record: When My Elite 12 String arrived last August to the workplace . He Played it and was really impressed with the Craftmanship, Sound and Action of it.Anytime it come with me he just has to play it! He said, And I Quote "God this thing is Loud and the tone is unbelievable. I had no idea and Ovation could Sound this Great!" He's Still a Taylor Snob, but at least Ovation made an impression on him!
As For the Soud of Koa like I said, It's Different than Spruce- Not as Bright. But it still has a pretty good sound on some guitar models and is stunning to look at. |
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Location: Converse, Texas | I learned on a Harmony roundtop, then went to an Epihpone, then a Guild, then a Martin D-45. But once I tried a Legend ... I never turned back! :cool: |
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Hokey Smoke What A Guitar!!!!!!!!!!!!