Mahogany Dreadnought Comparison

[ken cierp]

I completely respect those that dwell on the detail of plate thickness, flex and brace pattern design etc. Its part of the fun in building guitars. But as explained to me by Bob Taylor (actually an enlightenment) and further reinforced by engineering contacts (and Dick Boak) at the Martin factory. There are no surprises regarding the individual personalities of each guitar -- there is no better or worse, simply subjective opinions (even that of a factory tester). As an example, the two mostly hand made instruments in this demo are the least pleasing to my ear.

And here's my suggestion -- I believe its key in tweaking a guitars tonal qualities, if you want to change the personality of any guitar, change the string tension. I have found that even changing one or two strings can have a huge affect on the guitar's output. Its a matter of matching the "chassis" (guitar body) to the "engine" (string tension/power) in an effort to get the performance we want.