[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by ~j~

I would have thought the sides would also be a major part of translating the vibration between the top and the back ?? If the rigidity aids it, I guess I don't understand why more major manufacturers like martin and taylor wouldn't adopt that practice for all of their instruments.

Hi...
Martin, Taylor, and others do build the sides rigid. The sound waves radiate from the top and the back is a passive radiator. You don't want sound dissipating into the sides.

The rigid sides suspend the top & keep it from twisting or from folding up under 200 pounds of string tension. We do a lot of unnatural things to an acoustic guitar. We take wood which has been wound around a tree trunk, and saw, sand, plane and otherwise straighten, brace and string it up like a tight drum and then strum on the strings causing the top to vibrate in waves which go side to side, up and down and top to bottom (neck to lower bout) simultaneously.

And we expect it to keep this up for a hundred fifty years or so.

You will have to ask Martin, Taylor etc. why they try to build every guitar the same while hand builders try to build every guitar better...