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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 11
Location: California | I've got a few basic questions about tops I hope someone could answer:
1. How do they differentiate between an A, AA or AAA top? Looks? Sound? A combination of the two?
2. I understand that traditional woods used to construct instruments are getting scarcer every year. I've noticed on quite a few Ovations I've seen lately with natural tops, more so on the high end Legends, that the two halfs of the top are not a perfect match in color or texture. Do they pass them that way from the factory based on the shortage of good wood and that the sound is more important than the appearance?
3. Why is it that the low end Korean made Ovations often have perfect appearing tops - absolutely uniform in color and grain but are considered inferior in sound and quality?
4. The Adamas models have that super thin top made of the carbon fiber/birch laminate. I wonder if they could make an Ovation with that top but with a traditional round sound hole. Would the top then be too weak? I understand the whole idea was to eliminate the sound hole. But some of us old fashioned guys still like the look of a guitar with the hole in the middle.
Thanks for all replies! |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | there is an smt center hole guitar that is an Adamas |
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Joined:
February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Spuce is graded according to colour, stiffness, weight, number of grain lines per inch (an AA grade top has 10-12 per inch on average) straightness & evenness of grain lines, lack of knots & shadow, accuracy of quarter-sawing, presence of "bearclaw" figure, and a few other factors. Generally luthiers look for tonewoods with a high strength to weight ratio I.E. a top that is light but stiff. The price of most traditional tonewoods including top grade Spruce is rocketing, but cheaper grades do not make poor sounding guitars. The sound of the guitar is not just in the wood, but how the luthier utilises it.
Some offshore guitars have laminated tops. It's easy & relatively inexpensive to veneer any old crap with a nice looking outer layer. Won't necessarily sound good though.
Even with a centre soundhole, carbon-fibre will need less support than spruce. I don't think the centre sound hole Adamas guitars look or sound as good as the originals.
Paul
[ June 29, 2002: Message edited by: Paul Templeman ] |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 11
Location: California | Thanks Paul for the detailed info on how they grade tops. Also, many thanks to alpep for pointing out that there are center hole Adamas guitars. I didn't know that. I revisited their web site and found them. Alas the link to a picture of one didn't work for me. I finally found a picture of a 6591 out on the web. Wow, what a gorgeous instrument! The one I saw was charcoal grey. I wonder if they would make me a left handed one. There would probably be a hefty surcharge and a long wait. Hmm, maybe with next year's tax return.... |
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How do they grade spruce tops?
