What is your favorite spruce?

[LaFaro]

Originally Posted by Marcus Wong

Funny that no one has mentioned Swiss Moon Spruce yet

I've mentioned Swiss aka Alpine Spruce... but I'dont know about the moon, when it was cut...

[Chedeng88]

Visually, a nicely figured bearclaw Sitka spruce tops my list. I also like the creamy color of Euro spruce.

But tonally, I have yet to find another guitar that would beat the plain old AAA Sitka on my Goodall. The Carpathian spruce my SCGC OM is a very close second.

[rogthefrog]

My favorite spruce is the kind that grows on trees.

[6L6]

Sitka for me.

[rogthefrog]

Less flippantly, my favorite spruce is the piece my favorite builder picked for my favorite guitar.

[Rodger Knox]

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

My favorite tops are similar to Mark's specs; I look for tops that have the highest stiffness to lowest weight ratio, regardless of species, prominent cross grain silking, zero run out, split or cut as near to 90* as possible, wider but consistent grain across the face and finally it has to have excellent musical potential in its tap tone.

Spruce is spruce, there's too much overlap of properties between species for any meaningful evaluation based on species.

[Silly Moustache]

I have one guitar with an adi top. It is a Collings DS1a (12 fret dread Adi/hog) It is wonderful.

All my other Collings (three EIR and one more hog) all have sitka tops. They are wonderful.

I have a Santa Cruz sitka /hog. It is wonderful.

I have a Czech made mando with Euro spruce. It is wonderful.

My point?

1. I think that adi is just red. It doesn't matter if it comes from the Adirondacks or not.

2. I think red (old growth) is good stuff and takes a longer time to mature tonally.

3. I think that Sitka is a fine tone wood and undervalued/underestimated because it is plentiful (and not what Martin/Gibson used in the pre-war years).

4. European spruce (German, Swiss, Italian, Scandinavian, Russian, is all Picea Abies. It is "European spruce" and if its good , it's good. It is very plentiful. Like every other kind of spruce there are better bits than others.

There is a phrase that I've seen on many gruitar brand websites that makes me laugh - "Select Spruce" (that I think, means the bit on the top of the pile).

[dneal]

Originally Posted by Rico59

It's the builder, not the wood.

I've posted this sentiment many times as well. While there are nuances inherent in species, I've played too many guitars that dispelled "myths" of what a particular wood is supposed to sound like to believe otherwise.

I would refine the idea though, to "it's the builder with that particular piece of wood".

[Ed-in-Ohio]

Banner...Oh, wait, that's my favorite Bruce. Never mind.

[SantaCruzOMGuy]

Originally Posted by redir

I think the dislike for Sitka is because it's the most common top wood used on factory guitars that sell as 'hand made' and 'solid top' and as such they are not the greatest sounding guitars in the world so it might be better to stick with the more traditional species of spruces, just in case. But IMHO it makes a fine sounding guitar. I've even [gasp!] built a classical guitar with it.

I had a long conversation with ervin s. about top wood, he LOVES sitka. I went a step further down the "magic" road with moonspruce on a greenfield...gotta say its very special [emoji4]

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[CoolerKing]

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

Just a quick correction Matthew ... There are two other builders that I am aware of, both on this forum, who offer it, the builder who harvested the wood when he lived in CO and myself, who managed to coax a few sets from his stash IME I believe it to be very similar to Picea engelmannii but I have no scientific evidence to back up that hunch.

Gotcha thanks!
Matthew

[min7b5]

Red
Because it sounds and feels the best to me

[theEdwinson]

This may sound like a cop-out, but I like them all, based on the character and properties, and certainly the aesthetic appeal, of every specimen. Each set of wood must be judged on its own merits, so I don't generalize...
That said, in early 2016, I bought ten sequential sets of bearclaw Sitka from Brent Cole (http://alaskawoods.com/) that are out of this world! They were recycled from a float log at an Alaskan logging camp, from a tree that was harvested in the early 80s.
Check this out:

[TomB'sox]

Originally Posted by theEdwinson

This may sound like a cop-out, but I like them all, based on the character and properties, and certainly the aesthetic appeal, of every specimen. Each set of wood must be judged on its own merits, so I don't generalize...
That said, in early 2016, I bought ten sequential sets of bearclaw Sitka from Brent Cole (http://alaskawoods.com/) that are out of this world! They were recycled from a float log at an Alaskan logging camp, from a tree that was harvested in the early 80s.
Check this out:

WOW, that is quite the top on quite the guitar....amazing