muttley600 said:
Seems like we've hijacked another thread

As it happens I think most of the stuff in the NY Times article has dubious merit. I posted it as an example of some of the current research into musical acoustics that is in vogue at the moment. Its very hard when you get into the subject not to become obsessed with one or two really small details and lose sight of the bigger picture. I fell into that trap myself once when involved in researching damping or the "Q" factor in spruce. Convinced that impedence in timber was critical to its final sound I dived in and started looking for relationships between that and stiffneress and mass. I learnt a lot but, and this is the rub. I couldn't prove anything conclusively because it is impossible to factor everything else in and out. I may have been correct but we are years from ever being able to prove it..Eventually I moved on and concentrated on using the skills I had and the knowledge of acoustics combined to try and build better instruments.
There is no question that a good basic understanding of mechanics and physics will help you build better instruments but it just another tool in you arsenal. As such you have to know when the right time is to use it. Many of the published methods of guitar construction such and Benedetto, hiscox et al all owe the guidelines on thicknessing and size and shape to research that has proved give good results. Without good hand skills and practice they are useless. As you have already pointed out true craftsmanship is the key. God is in the detail..
I don't know that we've exactly hijacked it. I mean, it had already more or less come to it's natural conclusion.
At any rate, the real issue I have is with anyone trying to fine extremes in guitar building. The highest stiffness-to-weight ratio doesn't mean it's the RIGHT stiffness-to-weight ratio. The same goes for any of the other scientific study of instruments. To be frank, I've never noticed that any of the guys who do any of the scientific method stuff end up with guitars which are any more consistent that what dad does, or Jim Olson, or anyone else who has enough experience to know what they are doing. Dad doesn't tap tune tops. He FEELS them as he is sanding them to thickness, and as he is bracing them, but he doesn't have a particular measurement he is after; it just needs it to feel right. After 500 guitars (well, he's working on it right now), he knows what he needs from a piece of spruce. And his guitars are as consistent as any small shop builder I know of. And then there is the Taylor example. The most consistent guitars ever made, and Bob is doing his best to get EVERY guitar in his factory out the door in 15 hours or less of labor. They don't tap tune nothing working that quick.
The fact is, we have an expectation of what a guitar will sound like (or a violin, or a piano, etc.) Those expectations include the sound of wood. Most guitar players want their guitars to have a Martin X-brace sound. Just ask Charles Fox about his experience trying to mass market a perfectly fine double X style guitar (well, I thought they were pretty underwhelming, but then I have thought that about every double X guitar I've ever played - the workmanship was without fault, however). They ended up making not much more that a thousand of them, and going out of business. The sad thing is, if they had stayed in business just a couple of years longer, they probably would have done a lot better because they had come out with a more traditional x-braced top which I think would have sold much better. But he wanted to make "louder" and "more responsive" guitars. No one wanted them.
You can make small adjustments, but guitar buyers are awfully hide-bound, and are unlikely to go for anything which is too far away from what they are used to. And since these things are nothing more than a tool for the musician to make music with, whose to say they aren't right. They know what they want, and that is what they will play. Hell, most players won't even pick up a guitar which doesn't look right to them, much less buy one which doesn't sound familiar.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi