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Old 04-23-2009, 06:26 PM
Carbonius Carbonius is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Canada
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More and more companies are experimenting and offering offset soundholes. Most will say that the offset soundhole increases top movement. They can change the bracing pattern since there is no hole in the middle that braces have to work around. This can REALLY change the tone of the instrument. Offset soundholes that are closer to the player better project the sound to the player while not stealing sound from the audience. Some companies have no sound hole on the top at all and have a large port on the side like Batson for example (www.batsonguitars.com).

Composite Acoustics (www.compositeacoustics.com) offers their guitars with regular soundholes and offset. All the dimensions are the same but the bracing is different. The offset soundholes provide more bass even though there is no change in body size at all. Some people don't like the extra bass due to a preference of more upfront mids. Great point for comparison as not many companies offer both hole placements on a production style guitar.

In the last few years I would venture that Mcpherson has done the most for advancing offset soundhole guitars. of course, Ovation has done it for MANY years.
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