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| Is there going to be any discernable difference between AA and AAA spruce in a live situation? How about even in your living room? Or is it just look at that point?
Doug |
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | Can you say "cosmetics?" Sure....I knew you could! |
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Location: Florida | Awww Gooob...
The bigger question is... does the top material make a differenc in the sound. Oh yeah baby, it does! I dont think anyone would disagree on that part.
Now the question remains, just what makes AA versus AAA tops? Cosmetics? Sound? ????
In my limited knowledge of acoustic guitar luthiery, I was under the impression that the grades would more reflect the strength of the wood, as tested, with higher grades allowing for a thinner more vibrant top (since it not only thinner but can get by with less bracing as well). It just so happens that these stronger wood samples have tigher more even grain and sometimes cosmetic figurnig. I might be totally out to lunch on that premise - so somebody shoot me down.
As for tone - more goes into a top than just the wood its made of. Bracing has a whole lot to do with it. Bridge attachment does too. So... taking two examples - it MIGHT be that an LX top guitar with scalloped bracing and AA grade wood would actually sound more alive than say a Custom Legend with AAA wood but more traditional bracing.
Can you tell in your living room - if not there, then where? Certainly the best place to judge tone and response can't be some live situation (unless you have a to-die-for sound system).
On an aside issue - for solid bodies - everyone seems to think BODY WOOD is the king. Gotta tell you from first hand experiecne that NECK wood hold the #1 spot for tone producing quality. Now maybe if you're making all your necks the same (say maple) yeah the only thing left is the body wood. But if you have a choice of neck woods and a choice of body woods, you'll see that the selection of neck wood will influence the tone about 80 percent, versus 20 percent (my rough unscientific estimate) for the body wood. |
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | Of course the top is a major factor in the sound, but I have played some A tops that sounded better to me than some AAA top O's. The old sum of the parts thing.....
cwk2 just recently posted that Ovations were mainly graded on the visual quality. I wish I could remember which thread it was on. |
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Location: Scotland | There's a ton of factors which affect top grading. Wood is incredibly unpredictable & just because a guitar is made from supposedly lower grade wood does not necessarily mean a lower grade sound. Appearance is only one of the factors in top-grading. Strength to wieght ratio is equally if not more inportant. You might get a stiff, light AAA-grade top down-graded to AA because of a minor cosmetic flaw but it won't produce an inferior-sounding guitar because of that. I've played tons of depression-era and mid to late 1940's guitars with supposedly low-grade woods which just sound spectacular. My old '64 Epiphone Texan had maybe 15 lines to the inch & sounded amazing. Once the further influence of sound systems, pickups, preamps & room acoustics come in to play the difference between A-grade & Master-grade just becomes a non-issue.
Several builders have demonstrated that a guitars sound is more to do with the skill of the luthier than the quality of materials. In the 1800's Antonio Torres made a guitar with papier mache back & sides. Bob Benedetto made a carved-top guitar from construction-grade pine which he claims sounds as good as his standard guitars for which he charges 5-figure sums. And Bob Taylor famously made a guitar from fork-lift pallets which apparently sounds like a standard Taylor (I'm desperately trying not to make a smart-ass comment here) |
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Location: Florida | Ok, I'll make it then....
"And Bob Taylor famously made a guitar from fork-lift pallets which apparently sounds like a standard Taylor"
....Why would one expect it sound differently?? |
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Location: On the beach in Southwest Florida | But...for many of us we don't get a chance to compare dozens of O's before we buy. What are we supposed to do? |
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Location: NJ | Originally posted by peterbright:
But...for many of us we don't get a chance to compare dozens of O's before we buy. What are we supposed to do?
read this message board |
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Location: Florida | What to do?
Easy, play everyting you can find, decide on something, then buy an Adamas from Al. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Todays AA tops are tomorrows AAA.
Quality Standards Never Change!! they just vary from day to day
You always go for the best you can get. However remember the famous words, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes................ |
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Location: Canton (Detroit), MI | ....and today's fork-lift pallets will be the AAA tops of the year 2050....
Roger
1976 Applause AA14-4 6-String
1981 Ovation 1118-1 Glen Campbell 12-string
2001 Adamas 1598-MERB Melissa Etheridge 12-String
2003 Celebrity CC01 Spruce Top 6-String |
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Location: Upper Left USA | I thought I heard about a UPS Handler that made a pallet board out of a couple of Taylors... |
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | My ass hurts!! :cool: |
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| i recently spoke with a reputable 'taylor/martin' dealer and he told me of the exotic machines they use to xray, as it were, the finer woods for blemishes, etc..., and that state of the art of guitar manufacturing was just about peaked, especially with the new bracings and the audio tolerances which are applied now...
steve |
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Location: NJ | ". . . and that state of the art of guitar manufacturing was just about peaked . . ."
A statement like that reminds me of when many years ago the government wanted to do away with the Patent Office because there was "nothing new to invent".
When we went on the Tour last year we witnessed Ovation using a Laser Vibrometer to "map" the vaibration patterns of various tops/bracing patterns. My thinking is that a lot of the new LX models were a direct product of that experimentation (and who knows what might be going on somewhere where they chose NOT to show us?). Tecnological advances in various other industries will constantly be seeping into the guitar/instrument business. A few years from now, just WAIT for some of the freaky shit that'll come about if the U.S. Space Program "ramps up" again, as proposed. As choice grade lumber becomes more scarce/expensive, new technologies and procedures (like laminates) will become more prevelant. The Adamas has been doing it for years. I'm sure that an Adamas carbon-fibre top could be modified to accept a thin layer of nice wood on the outside. You'd have an attractive, "wooden" guitar top with the "eye candy" on the outside, with a stable, efficient, superior-sounding top underneath. |
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| yep, wouldn't be a surprise,'wood' it?...
steve |
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Location: Upper Left USA | Cliff,
Just think of the collector Market for a Custom Legend with "Martian Crystal inlay" or the 2 ounce zero-gravity spun Lyrachord III bodies on the LX IVs!
Do you think that the "Ovation Roll" will be a problem in zero gravity? |
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Location: Scotland | Hmm, So, if guitar-making technology has "peaked" can somebody explain to me why the majority of manufacturers using high-tech production methods are still trying to make a guitar which sounds as good as a pre-war factory-built Gibson or Martin flat-top, which were put together with very little machinery and pretty wide tolerances?
You'd have thought that with CNC,CADCAM & all the technological bells and whistles their aspirations might be a little higher & more imaginative. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Paul T, you said it all.......... |
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AAA vs AA live sound
