+1 !!! My sapele Taylor GA3-12 is only a couple of weeks awayfrom arrival! It's gonna be great! :wild:

I agree. I came up in the era of mahogany being the "poor man's choice" over rosewood. That was and is BS. I think Sapale is in the same stage right now. I don't find it as visually interesting as mahogany, but tonally it holds it own. I have, however seen some quilted Sapale that knocks the eyes out of your head.

Prefer mahogany.

I have a 1999 D15 and a 2009 00-15 and the woods are way different. Unfortunately, its hard to make a comparison with the diff body styles as to tone. One thing i can say is the old mahogany is much more attractive to me than the newer sapele. the sapele is too uniform in pattern, the mahogany has some character to the wood. The mahogany smells better. The mahogany is lighter. thats all i can say about that. I like them both. the D15 sounds Dark as dark can get for me, and the 00-15 has a lot of sustain and shimmer when my wife is playing her fingerstyle pieces on it. Im not sure i have heard such clear trebles, and such nice sustain as i do from that 00-15 yet. but ive not heard a lot of decent guitars lately.

If you look on the Taylor Build to Order sheet, Sapele and Ovangkol are offered as equal-price counterparts to Rosewood, Mahogany, and Maple. There's no discount for choosing one of these "easier to obtain" tone woods, which makes me think that the choice selections of sapele and ovangkol are just as good as the choice selections of other tone woods. It really just boils down to personal preference. I am a big fan of both woods and actually prefer ovangkol to rosewood.

"Sapele is a hardwood from Africa that grows in a range of climates from the Ivory Coast to the Cameroons, and eastward through Zaire to Uganda. Sapele (Entandrophragma cylindricum) is of the family Meliaceae which also includes mahagony. Although some may refer to it as sapele-mahogany it is not a member of the genus Swietena and therefore is not considered a true mahogany"

"ENTANDROPHRAGMA CYLINDRICUM
Sapele is a reddish-brown wood that in many ways is very similar to Mahogany. A remarkable feature of sapele is that the grain is interlocked and changes direction in frequent, irregular intervals. Before WWI the principal demand for this wood came from Germany where it was used for decorative cabinet work. Interestingly enough, sapele was found in the propeller-blades of German Zeppelins. Sapele is also one of Europe's most desired woods in manufacturing doors, windows and hardwood flooring. It has a wide variety of applications and is very popular as a decorative surface veneer for high-grade furniture such as book cases and cabinets. It is a great alternative to genuine Mahogany."

I doubt ANYONE could discern an audible difference blind-folded.

Sapele is cheaper and/or more readily available.

I would buy either assuming it sounded good AND I knew which I was paying for at the time of the purchase. The market seems to dictate a lower price for Sapele.

My OM has sapele b&s and I love the warm yet sparkly tone.Generally, its not as attractive as some pieces of mahogany but who buys a guitar for looks alone!

Really you can quite easily... Hoggers are much more warm sounding than Sapelle..Sapelle has a brighter sound overall, and not as much low end. Personally I think Sapelle looks much nicer as well, has tighter grain and is the stronger/harder of the two woods making it more suited for tone wood.

In principle sapele is neither inferior nor superior to mahogany. In practice, sapele is generally superior. That's not meant to be a blanket statement...it's meant to introduce this specific point... Every kind of wood comes in a range of quality from very nice to total junk. When a wood becomes quite rare, but still sought after for a particular legacy, then the price of what remains goes up while the average quality of what remains goes down. This is now the case with mahogany.

In the past instrument makers used and sought out mahogany that was relatively dense and sturdy, and those are precisely the qualities one finds very easily now in sapele. Folks would do well to put aside nomenclature and understand this: the sapele that's widely available today has more in common with yesteryear's choice mahogany, in terms of actual physical properties, than the mahogany that's widely available today does.

As far as public acceptance among the cognoscenti, calling sapele "mahogany" of some kind or another may have been a marketing blunder or not...whatever. Most people prefer to call things what they are, and perhaps there's an issue to be sorted out there. But that issue has no bearing on the actual merits of mahogany and sapele.

Matt, Excellent post.

Some luthiers, including Paul Hostetter, say they have seen sapele in pre war Gibsons. Not inferior, just another wood that looks like, but is not, mahogany no matter how some will try to prove or rationalize that it is it. Be happy with it. Good wood. I have many planks as large as 8x10, ; been collecting sapele for a couple decades.

The next marketing ploy will be "acajou"...guarantee it. The French came up with this a couple centuries ago as a catch all for anything that looked like mahogany.. and now is widely accepted as the word for mahogany.. more to the story which goes back to Brazil in the 1600's and the timber wars between the European invading nations to Central and So America and Africa.

This isssue of sapele/mahogany is no different than the bolivian rosewood/rosewood. Fact, bolivian rosewood is not a rosewood no matter how hard some try to justify that it is. It is a beautiful wood with great properties and suitable for instruments.. hiowever, not a rosewood. Goes by many other names including pao ferro and morado, sometimes caviuna...
Caviuna another wood buzzword.. it too will be in use as will acajou.. name sounds exotic so the wood must be good. Spanish builders have been using this term for years...Caviuna...anything that looks like rosewood. Acajou.. anything that looks like mahogany.

Sapele vs. Hog
 

That piques my interest-if weather resistant over mahogany it would prove to have better longevity. But the tighter pore and grain structure might inhibit the resonation qualities. I would like to see a wave study on the two woods using exact sound conditions. By the way-these posts are great. I have learned more in a few minutes of reading than if I went researching the subject.

+1 to matt's post, and +1 to your's as well :D

This is all very encouraging to hear seeing as im very tempted by a used Martin 00-15 (All Sapele) but have been holding fire as im concerned that it wont sound as nice as my all hog 000-15M, which i adore. If it's a case of it being more of the same then im very, very tempted. Just wondering whether due to the 00 being smaller in size than the 000 & the fact that many have stated that Sapele has slightly more shimmery/Sparkly qualities & less bass response to it than Mahogany, whether the 00 would be too bright & too different in comparison to my 000-15M? I do love the sound of my all hog 000-15M though & would love another 15 series. Can i expect more of the same?

I actually prefer Sapele, especially for fingerstyle playing. And doors:)