Hardwood tops

Tannin · February 2023

Talk me through hardwood tops please. Assume I know nothing at all about them. (That won't be too far from the truth.)

By "hardwood top" I mean mahogany, Koa, Blackwood and similar. Also relevant are the "quasi-hardwoods" like Yew and Huon Pine - technically softwoods but similar weight, strength, and hardness to typical hardwoods, presumably similar in sound too.

I understand that hardwood-top guitars are a bit quieter.

What I don't understand is how they differ tonally from the more standard tops.

I am familiar with the common softwood top timbers and and a clear notion of the way they sound and the differences between them (Cedar, Englemann Spruce, European Spruce, Sitka Spruce, Red Spruce aka :Adirondack". Of those my favourite is cedar, followed by Sitka, my least favourite is Red Spruce.

(I do own a Huon Pine top guitar, one of the "hardwood softwoods" theoretically somewhat similar to mahogany, but I don't know if that one guitar is a useful guide to hard tops in general.)

So who owns one, and what observations would you make about it?

WezV · February 2023

Just a note on terminology. Hardwood and softwood refer to the biological structure of a tree connected to species/genus, not its measurable hardness. Hard wood and soft wood would be descriptions of it's hardness.

So Huon Pine would be a hard wood softwood, and balsa would be a soft wood hardwood.

I'm also interested in this discussion as I plan on making another acoustic this year. I have two sets of lovely English walnut and was tempted to do a matching top and back acoustic built with all UK grown woods

bertie · February 2023

not liked any mahogany topped acoustic Ive ever played

Tannin · February 2023

WezV said:

Just a note on terminology. Hardwood and softwood refer to the biological structure of a tree connected to species/genus, not its measurable hardness. Hard wood and soft wood would be descriptions of it's hardness.

So Huon Pine would be a hard wood softwood, and balsa would be a soft wood hardwood.

I'm also interested in this discussion as I plan on making another acoustic this year. I have two sets of lovely English walnut and was tempted to do a matching top and back acoustic built with all UK grown woods

Indeed. That is why I used the prefix "quasi-".

This is my interest too, WezV. I am considering ordering a Brook in July. Seeing as (if I go ahead) it will be my one and only British guitar, I'd like it to be made from all-native timbers. The UK has lots of lovely back and neck timbers, but finding a suitable top is a bit of a challenge. I'm wondering how I would like a guitar with a hardwood or quasi-hardwood top - yew, walnut, oak, cherry, or etc. If pushed, I could go to European Spruce for the top, but let's explore the native options first.

Mellish · February 2023

I'm pretty sure all my acoustic guitars from about 1970 to present have all been Sitka topped.

Prior to that, there was one from Woolworths (that being my first) and a few out of my mother's club book. Lord alone knows what top woods *they* had!

thomasross20 · February 2023

Haha

I think these instruments are very targeted. I will stick to sitka

Gandalph · February 2023

I would say that they really do need a lot more ' 'playing in' time than spruce, etc.
But once they have been they can really shine.

Plenty can't be arsed with doing that and I can't blame them. Each to their own.

For anyone looking to add one to their collection I'd suggest getting a good used one that's already been played...a lot.

A good all mahogany can sound really warm, woody and focused.

That's to my ears anyway. The next fella might equate that as dull, lifeless, subdued, etc.

I personally love a good hog top. Arguably, the best guitar I've ever played, and this was only recently, was an all mahogany 1944 Gibson LG-2. It was pricey though and the bridge spacing was too tight but wow...it sounded bloody amazing.

bermudianbrit · February 2023

I've played a few all mahogany guitars from well respected makers. They always just sounded a bit dull and lifeless to me - no sparkle, no life. It was almost like I was playing with dead strings or something. I get it if you want very middy blues tone - think 1930s fingerstyle blues vibes, but otherwise...nah.

Mellish · February 2023

Actually, @Gandalph has reminded me.

I *have* played a guitar with a hog top, a Taylor GS Mini in PMT.
Lovely tone, and I would've bought it, had I been looking.
But it's made me think. I'll have to seek out acoustics with different top woods.

drofluf · February 2023

Tannin said:

WezV said:

Just a note on terminology. Hardwood and softwood refer to the biological structure of a tree connected to species/genus, not its measurable hardness. Hard wood and soft wood would be descriptions of it's hardness.

So Huon Pine would be a hard wood softwood, and balsa would be a soft wood hardwood.

I'm also interested in this discussion as I plan on making another acoustic this year. I have two sets of lovely English walnut and was tempted to do a matching top and back acoustic built with all UK grown woods

Indeed. That is why I used the prefix "quasi-".

This is my interest too, WezV. I am considering ordering a Brook in July. Seeing as (if I go ahead) it will be my one and only British guitar, I'd like it to be made from all-native timbers. The UK has lots of lovely back and neck timbers, but finding a suitable top is a bit of a challenge. I'm wondering how I would like a guitar with a hardwood or quasi-hardwood top - yew, walnut, oak, cherry, or etc. If pushed, I could go to European Spruce for the top, but let's explore the native options first.

Talk to Simon and Andy - I'm sure they'd be happy to advise on what will work.

Whilst I like the idea of a "Full English" guitar if I were spending that amount though I wouldn't want to make a compromise on the sound for it to follow a "theme".

bertie · February 2023

drofluf said:

Tannin said:

WezV said:

Just a note on terminology. Hardwood and softwood refer to the biological structure of a tree connected to species/genus, not its measurable hardness. Hard wood and soft wood would be descriptions of it's hardness.

So Huon Pine would be a hard wood softwood, and balsa would be a soft wood hardwood.

I'm also interested in this discussion as I plan on making another acoustic this year. I have two sets of lovely English walnut and was tempted to do a matching top and back acoustic built with all UK grown woods

Indeed. That is why I used the prefix "quasi-".

This is my interest too, WezV. I am considering ordering a Brook in July. Seeing as (if I go ahead) it will be my one and only British guitar, I'd like it to be made from all-native timbers. The UK has lots of lovely back and neck timbers, but finding a suitable top is a bit of a challenge. I'm wondering how I would like a guitar with a hardwood or quasi-hardwood top - yew, walnut, oak, cherry, or etc. If pushed, I could go to European Spruce for the top, but let's explore the native options first.

Talk to Simon and Andy - I'm sure they'd be happy to advise on what will work.

Whilst I like the idea of a "Full English" guitar if I were spending that amount though I wouldn't want to make a compromise on the sound for it to follow a "theme".

they use UK woods wherever possible (obvious exceptions) and they always make use of any "fallen" trees around where the workshop is -

WezV · February 2023

Tannin said:

This is my interest too, WezV. I am considering ordering a Brook in July. Seeing as (if I go ahead) it will be my one and only British guitar, I'd like it to be made from all-native timbers. The UK has lots of lovely back and neck timbers, but finding a suitable top is a bit of a challenge. I'm wondering how I would like a guitar with a hardwood or quasi-hardwood top - yew, walnut, oak, cherry, or etc. If pushed, I could go to European Spruce for the top, but let's explore the native options first.

If you can find some UK grown Douglas Fir it may fit the brief well... but generally I would back what others have said and stick to what the builder knows well and recommends

Tannin · February 2023

Cheers all.

drofluf said:

Talk to Simon and Andy - I'm sure they'd be happy to advise on what will work.

Whilst I like the idea of a "Full English" guitar if I were spending that amount though I wouldn't want to make a compromise on the sound for it to follow a "theme".

Yes, that is my thinking mate. I have guitars from a variety of places and like doing that "local theme" thing. (As you know, lovely woods which have some significance in their own right are half the value in a guitar to me.) My current baritone build is all-Tasmanian timbers and we haven't needed to compromise at all - King Billy Pine is a noted top softwood often said to be cedar-like in its tone.

With this British one, I'm aiming for a quiet play-at-night guitar, one that doesn't disturb Mrs Tannin too much. So a small body makes sense (parlour or single-0), and possibly a hardwood top because - within reason - a drop in volume will be welcome so long as we retain good tone and responsiveness. My best play-at-night guitar right now in the Cole Clark Angel with the Huon Pine top. It is easily the quietest one, but lovely to play. However I don't want too draw to many conclusions from a sample of one.

Anyway, as you say, getting a good musical result has to be priority #1.

Given that, I would like to have:

(1) All native timbers.
(2) Failing that, a mix of native and introduced but long-established timbers. (Some surprises here. I understand that European Walnut, although often called "English Walnut" is in fact introduced! London Plane certainly is. But - oh! - what a great looker it is!)
(3) Failing that, I could go to nearby places, for example with European Spruce.
(4) And failing that, I could just say "bugger it, cedar makes a lovely top, let's use some cedar from Canada and forget about the all-British theme".

Kilgore · February 2023

I've got a cheap Mahogany Sigma 000.
I would describe it as woody, mellow and creamy( whatever that means!)not a lot of treble I can appreciate that some would describe it as muddy.

I use it almost exclusively for finger picked blues. The tops do take time to open up. I string it with 80/20s which adds just a bit more zing to the trebles to my ears.

drofluf · February 2023

bertie said:

<snip>

they use UK woods wherever possible (obvious exceptions) and they always make use of any "fallen" trees around where the workshop is -

Think that's true for the back and sides - mine has some local Walnut - but the necks are generally mahogany and looking at the news section of their website my impression I that tops are generally not UK native woods.

Tannin · February 2023

WezV said:

If you can find some UK grown Douglas Fir it may fit the brief well... but generally I would back what others have said and stick to what the builder knows well and recommends

I believe that there is also UK-grown Western Red Cedar, and there is certainly Norway Pine (aka Scots Pine/ European Redwood) albeit not a noted tonewood - but yes, I will certainly be going with something the builder knows and likes. The way I look at it, if you go to a restaurant where the chef is famous for his fish and recommends the flounder, you are stupid if you order steak.

Having said that, there are two particular woods which seem to me to be the iconic British timbers. First, oak - think Roman bridges, Tudor mansions, Nelson's wooden walls, the timbers of the Cutty Sark -oak is intrinsic to British history and I can't imagine Britian without oak. Second, yew - the English longbow utterly dominates the history of the Middle Ages (Crecy, Agincourt, Poitiers, all those Civil War and Scottish battles) and that means yew.

Anyway, I want to use those two timbers. There are usually four different main timbers in an acoustic guitar (plus odds and ends like bindings and headstock veneer) - top, back and sides, neck, fretboard. These four define the guitar, anything ese is largely decoration. And I would like two of those four - any two - to be oak and yew.

That leaves two others ....

MSedg · February 2023

I’ve had two all-mahogany guitars. One was a 1948 Martin 0-15, the other (which I still have) is an Atkin Dustbowl 00. Maybe I’ve been lucky but neither really sounded particularly muted or quiet. Definitely traded off some sparkle at the top end for a more “woody”, mid-heavy tonality, but in both cases any lack of treble was remedied a bit by being small-bodied.

I have also played several old Gibsons which were all hog (can’t remember exact years but 1950s) LG-0s, and a couple of 60s ones, and didn’t like any of them particularly.

So I guess like anything - good ones and bad ones available.

Kalimna · February 2023

You may find it useful to have a look at Turnstone Guitars all native acoustics. A price bracket above Brook, but stunning instruments to play and listen to. There will be no compromise in their construction, whatever the timber.
From memory, Rosie has used yew, WRC and Douglas Fir for topwood. Bog oak fr B&S, ash and sycamore for neck.

ICBM · February 2023

I have a mahogany-top parlour. It’s not quiet *at all*, in fact it’s probably the loudest parlour I’ve ever played. I’ve never heard that they’re particularly quiet before either.

The tone difference is as you would expect from a harder wood - tighter, more midrangy and punchy, with a noticeable almost metallic ring to it. It doesn’t have anything like the depth or softness of my spruce-top Dreadnought, but it’s hard to say how much is down to the wood and how much the size.

One thing that is different about it is that the top is *extremely* lightly braced - minimal, almost to the point that I don’t think it could be done with spruce - because mahogany is inherently stronger. That probably helps with the volume and attack.

bertie · February 2023

drofluf said:

bertie said:

<snip>

they use UK woods wherever possible (obvious exceptions) and they always make use of any "fallen" trees around where the workshop is -

Think that's true for the back and sides - mine has some local Walnut - but the necks are generally mahogany and looking at the news section of their website my impression I that tops are generally not UK native woods.

hence the "obvious exceptions" comment

mykewright · February 2023

I think the difficulty will be anything like fir or spruce that's grown in the UK will be "commercially" grown, in other words as quickly as possible. What you ideally want for a top is something slow grown with the tree rings closer together for maximum strength which would equal thinnest top and lightest bracing. I'm sure Simon and Andy will guide you well.

Dave_Mc · February 2023

WezV said:

Just a note on terminology. Hardwood and softwood refer to the biological structure of a tree connected to species/genus, not its measurable hardness. Hard wood and soft wood would be descriptions of it's hardness.

Hard to believe people get confused by that...

Seriously, though, if you care what an electric player thinks- and I've only tried a few, and I'm not even sure exactly what mahogany they were- the mahogany-topped ones I've tried were warmer and less complex-sounding, for want of a better word. At the time when I was only going to have one guitar (well, my sister actually, since I was helping her decide on one at the time) I wasn't that fussed and we preferred spruce- but if you were going to have several guitars it makes more sense. I'm not sure I'd want one as my only guitar.

Tannin · February 2023

Kalimna said:

You may find it useful to have a look at Turnstone Guitars all native acoustics. A price bracket above Brook, but stunning instruments to play and listen to. There will be no compromise in their construction, whatever the timber.
From memory, Rosie has used yew, WRC and Douglas Fir for topwood. Bog oak fr B&S, ash and sycamore for neck.

Cheers @Kalimna - some time ago you mentioned Turnstone and yew as a topwood, and I followed that up with interest. (The one You-tube video I found, unfortunately, doesn't convey much about the actual sound of the guitar.) I won't be buying a Turnstone - spending £7k on an instrument isn't out of the question one of these days but not for one made on the other side of the world - but there are useful ideas there which I can feed into a Brook build. They do look like lovely instruments.

mykewright said:

I think the difficulty will be anything like fir or spruce that's grown in the UK will be "commercially" grown, in other words as quickly as possible. What you ideally want for a top is something slow grown with the tree rings closer together for maximum strength which would equal thinnest top and lightest bracing. I'm sure Simon and Andy will guide you well.

Yes. I'm not really seeing much point to foreign timbers grown in the UK. Western Red Cedar is from North America and it is a North American timber regardless of whether the particular log was grown in England or southern Australia.

As a matter of interest, I grew up on the slopes of a mountain not far from Melbourne. Far-sighted foresters in the 1920s had planted vast amounts of Oregon Pine (as we know it here - the rest of the world calls the same species Douglas Fir). Oregon was a very popular construction timber with an excellent strength-to-weight ratio, so it made sense to grow it here. Sadly, although this was a well-watered location with lovely rich soil and the trees grew brilliantly, the warmer climate mean that they grew too fast and the harvested timber had a wide grain and was not as strong as the same species grown in Canada. Sometime around about 1970 or so I believe they declared the experiment a failure and stopped replanting it. Those areas are now more of the same-old-same-old Radiata Pine which is grown in huge quantities both here and in New Zealand. It is not regarded as a particularly good tonewood, though I've used any amount of it to build sheds and house frames.

Things like walnut and London Plane are technically foreign too, but they have been grown in the UK for hundreds, possibly thousands of years and in at least some cases grow wild as well as planted. So I'm happy to treat them as "quasi-natives".

More generally, I have for some time been umming and ahhing about my next build. The current build (a Tasmanian timbers baritone) is set, as is the one after next (another Maton, this one in all-Australian timbers). But for the next one I've been tossing up between Britain and Germany, Brook or Stoll - either way in local timbers so far as possible. Local European timbers would be much easier!

Maybe I could define "British" as "anything grown somewhere in the (former) Empire.

PS: I haven't told Mrs Tannin about this guitar yet. That could be the tricky bit!

drofluf · February 2023

In which case aren’t all of your guitars British by your definition?

Tannin · February 2023

^ Hmmm depends which part of Africa the ebony fretboards came from.

What else have I got?

* Rosewood - presumably India. Tick.
* Spruce - some from Canada (tick), some from Alaska (dubious tick), some from the eastern USA: also dubious - 1776 was a very long time ago, I don't think I'd count that as "Empire". Not in its glory days anyway.
* Cedar - Canada or the US. Tick.
* Blackwood, Queensland Maple, Satin Box, Silky Maple, Huon Pine, Tiger Myrtle, Southern Sassafras, King Billy Pine, Celery Top Pine, Bunya. All from Australia, certainly part of the Empire back in the day. Tick.
* Mahogany from somewhere in South America, so almost certainly never in the Empire. Cross.
* Rock Maple: USA or Canada.

So pretty close.

guitarjack66 · February 2023

bertie said:

drofluf said:

Tannin said:

WezV said:

Just a note on terminology. Hardwood and softwood refer to the biological structure of a tree connected to species/genus, not its measurable hardness. Hard wood and soft wood would be descriptions of it's hardness.

So Huon Pine would be a hard wood softwood, and balsa would be a soft wood hardwood.

I'm also interested in this discussion as I plan on making another acoustic this year. I have two sets of lovely English walnut and was tempted to do a matching top and back acoustic built with all UK grown woods

Indeed. That is why I used the prefix "quasi-".

This is my interest too, WezV. I am considering ordering a Brook in July. Seeing as (if I go ahead) it will be my one and only British guitar, I'd like it to be made from all-native timbers. The UK has lots of lovely back and neck timbers, but finding a suitable top is a bit of a challenge. I'm wondering how I would like a guitar with a hardwood or quasi-hardwood top - yew, walnut, oak, cherry, or etc. If pushed, I could go to European Spruce for the top, but let's explore the native options first.

Talk to Simon and Andy - I'm sure they'd be happy to advise on what will work.

Whilst I like the idea of a "Full English" guitar if I were spending that amount though I wouldn't want to make a compromise on the sound for it to follow a "theme".

they use UK woods wherever possible (obvious exceptions) and they always make use of any "fallen" trees around where the workshop is -

This is how most manufacturing of guitars should be done,imo.

Shadow · February 2023

Luthier Adrian Lucas who is based in Lincoln uses a lot of reclaimed wood in his builds.

https://www.lucasguitars.co.uk/woods

Tannin · April 2023

Thanks to the nice people at Modern Musician in Hobart - a shop where I've bought two guitars and will doubtless buy more - I got to try a number of hardwood tops out for myself today. I explained what I was looking to learn and was able to play every hardwood-top guitar in the shop, save three or four cheapies I didn't bother with and also a slimline Cole Clark. (I have no interest in slimline acoustics, they are for stage use, not stand-alone acoustic playing.)

I started with this one - https://www.modernmusician.com.au/cole-clark-ccan2ec-rdbl-angel-2-redwood-tasmanian (equivalent to £1,376. Ignore the incorrect labelling on their website it is, like all Cole Clark guitars, made in Victoria using South-west Victorian Blackwood from the Otway Ranges.) The chap said that the Redwood-Blackwood combination was interesting because in most guitars you get crispness and snap from the top wood with the back wood having more to do with the bottom and mids (this agrees with my experience) but here Cole Clark have gone t'other way about; the soft redwood top (a timber almost as soft as cedar) being sharpened with the crisp top end of the hard Blackwood back. He was absolutely right: a very interesting guitar to play, full and rich and warm almost to the point of being muddy, but with just enough of that crisp Blackwood top end to give it balance.

But I thought I was here to look at hardwood tops? So I was. On to this one - https://www.modernmusician.com.au/cole-clark-angel-2ec-blackwood-blackwood - which he was kind enough to fetch from out the back for me, there not being enough room to have it out on display at present. All-Blackwood, same price, and a very different guitar. Crisp and trebly and lots of attack, but without ever being unmanageable or harsh. I went back and forward between the two Cole Clarks for quite some time. I could happily own either one. Both are palpably different to any of my other guitars, a different sound and a different feel. The redwood one was in some ways rather like my cedar top dred, but nevertheless distinct - fuller-bodied, a bigger sound but less even and less versatile. The all-Blackwood one ... well, I keep coming back to the word "crisp". Very bright, louder than I expected, but controlled and playable for all of that. (Both had cutaways. Non-cutaway versions of the same thing would be even better.)

I also tried a couple of Cole Clark dreadnoughts in the same timber combinations just to see if they sounded as expected after playing the two Angels. In a word, yes.

On to the Taylors. First this one - https://www.modernmusician.com.au/taylor-724ce-koa - all Koa, quite expensive at £2,859 (remember that guitars are cheaper here in Oz, the same model is well over £3000 in the UK) and worth it in my opinion.

It was a lovely guitar, clearly the pick of the three (albeit double the price). It had a little bit of that magic quality the very best guitars have of making you feel like a better musician than you are. Yes, that is a real thing. I don't think anyone knows where it comes from, but some guitars really do help you play better. Apart from being effortless to play (any good setup can achieve that) they just naturally produce balanced, musical sounds. Instead of working to make the guitar sound its best, you can simply think about the tune that you are playing and let the instrument worry about getting the sound right.

Set that aside. The sound was deeper than the Blackwood, less attack, not so crisp, but still plenty of bite married to a fuller, rounder bass. I'm going to generalise that to Koa guitars more broadly (pending evidence to the contrary) because I then played this one - https://www.modernmusician.com.au/taylor-builders-edition-k24ce - very expensive at £4,553, it would be over £5000 in the UK - which was very similar as regards tone, but not a quarter of the instrument overall, in my opinion. I didn't take note of my reasons, nor did I spend long with it. A minute or so was enough to confirm the tonal qualities of the timbers, and to know that it was not a guitar I cared for at all.

Back to the first Taylor, the one I liked so much. It would be very interesting to compare it directly with a 3-Series Cole Clark rather than the much cheaper 2-Series ones I played today. In theory all Cole Clarks go down the same CNC production line and are identical bar the trim level. In reality, the more expensive 3-Series models get first pick of the timbers and a lot more hand finishing and tweaking. They tend to be pretty special. That Koa Taylor 724 vs a Blackwood Angel 3 would be a tough choice!

Anyway, the Koa guitars were a different experience to the Blackwood guitars. Most people usually say Koa and Blackwood are practically the same thing. Other people (a minority) say no, they are a bit similar but far from identical - Koa has more middle and a distinctive sound. I have been on the fence: Koa and Blackwood have different profiles (Blackwood is marginally heavier, equally hard, and much stronger) but as to the actual sound I didn't have enough experience to take a view. After playing two examples of each today, back to back, swapping between them as often as I wanted to, I have come to agree with the second school: they are not at all the same. Saying "Koa sounds like Blackwood" is like saying "Queensland Maple sounds like mahogany". It is only true insofar as neither of them sound remotely like rosewood.

Yes, only four guitars and two of them were Taylor, two Cole Clark, so hardly an extensive random sample. But I know both Cole Clark and Taylor guitars pretty well, I am familiar with their "house sound" and feel and I'm confident I was able to allow for that and hear the timbers, not just the brands.

Tannin · April 2023

On to mahogany and a pair of Martins. First this one which I picked up by mistake thinking it was a D15 . - https://www.modernmusician.com.au/martin-road-series-d-10e-sapele - and it was a mistake! It was, in a word, awful. To be strictly accurate, it is Sapele, not mahogany. But it felt and sounded cheap and nasty. I have no reason to think that was the timber's fault.

I quickly put it down and picked up this one - https://www.modernmusician.com.au/martin-d-15m - which (despite Martin's dishonest PR material) is not mahogany either, it is Sipo. That lasted about 30 seconds. It wasn't as dreadful as the D-10 but it had a different kind of awful. Again, not the wood's fault - Sipo is a perfectly respectable tonewood - just an awful sound. I cannot imagine what people find to like about this model. It sounds cheap and limited and crappy and boxy. Could you play blues on it? Sure you could, and it would go sort-of OK. But you can play blues on practically anything, including any of the many far better instruments. I didn't bother picking up any of the cheap plywood Yamahas on the other side of the room but I bet that any one of them would have sounded better. I'm not a Martin-basher - I like D-18s and D-28s and OM-28s and 000-18s and I love HD-28s, but wow! What a pair of duds!

Finally, just to hear something familiar and provide a known-familiar-sound-check on my conclusions, I picked up an old favourite in orthodox spruce and Sapele - https://www.modernmusician.com.au/taylor-314ce - and it was a shock. I know the 314ce and I very nearly bought one back in 2020. But this example, to my great surprise, wasn't a patch on the 314ce I remember. Granted, the strings were awful, but I suspect that has come about because this particular guitar is a crappy one and it's been sitting on the wall for a very long time. I've always regarded Taylor as having second-to-none quality control, but this guitar has shaken my belief. That very expensive Taylor I disliked further up the page, put that down to individual taste if you want to, but this 314 simply wasn't up to scratch.

Three duds in a row!

So I went back to the lovely 724ce, to the intriguing Angel 2 Redwood-Blackwood, and the delightful Angel 2 all-Blackwood. Three guitars I'd happily take home and play often.

What have I learned more generally?

* Yes, hardwood tops work for me. They aren't so very different to the softwood tops I'm used to, not in a scary way, and they offer an attractive variation on familiar themes.

* They vary a lot! From my limited sample today, possibly even more than softwood tops do.

* Given both of those things, yes, I want one or two, but I think I might be wise to limit myself to off-the-shelf instruments, ones I can play before I buy. For custom builds, I'm inclined to play it safe and stay with softwoods. (Probably.)

WezV · April 2023

Tannin said:

Anyway, the Koa guitars were a different experience to the Blackwood guitars. Most people usually say Koa and Blackwood are practically the same thing. Other people (a minority) say no, they are a bit similar but far from identical - Koa has more middle and a distinctive sound. I have been on the fence: Koa and Blackwood have different profiles (Blackwood is marginally heavier, equally hard, and much stronger) but as to the actual sound I didn't have enough experience to take a view. After playing two examples of each today, back to back, swapping between them as often as I wanted to, I have come to agree with the second school: they are not at all the same. Saying "Koa sounds like Blackwood" is like saying "Queensland Maple sounds like mahogany". It is only true insofar as neither of them sound remotely like rosewood.

They are very similar species of wood in almost all ways. I always find it odd that 2 such similar and related species exist in isolation on Islands, and nowhere else.

In terms of similarity as a tonewood. It's worth remebring you can take any species and grow it in 2 different locations and get a distinctly different timber. The environment matters a lot.

Sonokeling Vs EI rosewood is a good example of this. They are the same botanic species of Dalbergia latifolia, either grown in India or Indonesia. Sonokeling is often a little softer and usually has wider grain from being grown quicker.

Tannin · April 2023

Good points @WezV. ;

I've seen some very interesting work done with tree provenance (this was for conservation and revegation rather than timber harvesting but the same idea) comparing forms and growth rates of different-provenance seedlings of the same species in different local soils. Some of them, after say 10 years , you'd swear were completely different species!

On a matter of detail, Blackwood is far from isolated, it grows over an area roughly 3000 kilometres from north to south. There are about 1300 different Acacia species spread from Hawaii to Africa. Only a bare handful of them have been explored as tonewoods. What remains to be discovered?

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