I agree with this assessment. Too many variables in guitar making to isolate one aspect and draw clear conclusions even though we do it all the time here on the AGF! :-)
Best,
Jayne

Granted a good guitar is a good guitar. As for me the differences come out the more familiar I become with the instrument. I can hear a difference between my varnish finished Waterloo WL-S Deluxe and the nitro finished WL-S. And I've had a couple. I'll add they are consistent. If you take a guitar at face value, then it doesn't matter. If you like a guitar "but" you wish it had a little this or less of that then little things matter. But this is geek stuff. You can change the world with a crappy guitar.

I have heard that the top accounts for 80-90% of the tone, so in the end I don't think it makes that much of a difference. IMO the things that make a guitar "good", such as responsiveness, volume, bass response, harshness/warmth, are almost all determined by the top. The backs impart their own flavor or spice, such as the EQ curve, overtones, etc. So you can get a good guitar made out of any wood suitable for guitar, but using a certain type of B&S wood will not guarantee a good guitar. It's not necessarily analogous but I think of it as comparing the importance of the speaker vs. the cabinet material in a speaker cabinet.

I also think species is a bit overrated. The information I have gathered while on this forum and others is that the properties of the wood, such as density, stiffness, damping, etc., are what matter most. So that's why Mahogany, Maple, and Rosewood generally sound different, as they generally have very different properties to each other. But the difference between Mahogany and Sapele or Cherry might be insignificant. More importantly, it's the properties of the specific piece of wood that matters, not the average properties of the species as a whole.

I hope people can move on from the Mahogany Rosewood paradigm. Mahogany has a ton of suitable substitutes even domestically as there are quite a lot of trees that are softer with relatively high damping. Rosewood has less substitutes but they are available, such as Osage Orange. It seems like Taylor's new Ironbark guitars will fall into the range of Rosewood and Ebony.

Granted, it can be tough to name B/S wood playing blindfolded, but it's been my impression that when a luthier wants to take the tone of a guitar in a particular direction, the choice of B/S wood comes into play.

This question seems particularly relevant with the recent discussions and demos of Taylor's use of "urban" woods. I'd like to think that wood preference is to some extent historical, and that novel recycled woods can make good guitars. But personally, I haven't been convinced yet -- maybe Taylor hasn't optimized their design for these woods yet?

But yeah -- the guitars we like are the ones we like, regardless of tonewood.

With factory made guitars, yes, I hear a notable difference between spruce over rosewood and spruce over mahogany. To me, there is a very clear difference in sound between a Martin D-18 and an HD-28.

As others have pointed out, some luthier-made guitars have been built in such a way that the differences between rosewood and mahogany can be very hard to hear.

- Glenn

I've read here and in other places such as luthier blogs, that 80% of the way a guitar sounds comes from the top - top wood, bracing etc.
The other 20% is from the 'tone wood' back and sides.

Blind fold me, put a guitar in my hands and let me play a bit, I can't tell what back and sides it has.
But, I'm getting older and my ears are not as sensitive as they used to be.

This is not a single question but several. To begin with two: 1) Does back/sides material affect sound? and 2) Can a given listener/player hear the difference? Then there's 3) Does the listener/player have a preference?

That last question is where the audio rubber hits the player road--and "preference" is actually a matter of *whose* preference (and even an individual's preference is not necessarily unitary or single-dimensional), though a sufficiently large and well-designed survey could probably map the reported preferences of a player population and rank build formulas by *popularity*.

A side-note: A builder friend has devised a feature that I would not have thought all that significant: what he calls "double-sided" construction. He laminates the rims from two different woods--say, rosewood and mahogany--which makes for stiffer sides, which affects the way the top couples to them, which affects the way the top responds. There are other structural elements he has devised as well, each contributing to the sound he is pursuing. So materials can make a difference, but they're only part of the whole formula.

My feelings are the same. I believe useful generalizations can be made; but that bracing, top wood and other design elements can move one type of B&S wood closer -but not fully- towards tone that might be expected from another wood. As an example of a generalization, I consistently find -over 50 years- that maple B&S is consistently not to my liking, except in Jumbos. (Maple lovers please take no offense, it's just my personal ear, and I'm sure exceptions that I haven't played exist:guitar:

Before talking about woods (and their sound frequency spans),
we have to take two other big factors into the equation : bracing
type (wood and geometry) as well as string type. All things similar
but wood type, wood quality could be another factor.

And finally, two said identical instruments may not sound the same.

That said, I did own all Mahogany instruments that seemed to me
to deliver as much overtones as a back and sides Rosewood sisters.

I do prefer Mahogany and the few hundreds bucks that stay in my pocket.

P.S. I already mentioned elsewhere that matching different acoustics with
different string types made many of my acoustics to sound quite alike, so
approaching my own sound taste.

I believe I can easily tell European from Adirondack spruce, and from cedar. I can easily tell mahogany from rosewood, and from maple. But I am frankly unable to tell Indian from Madagascar, and from Brazilian (more limited experience with the latter). Other constructive aspects are much more important than rosewood species in my experience.
Contrary to what a poster (surprisingly) wrote above, note separation is greater with mahogany than rosewood. Also, mahogany guitars can have the loudest basses and not sound "bassy", if that makes sense, due to energy of the fundamentals. All the above "to my ears":)

Does the wood used for the back and sides realy make a difference?

Yes. To a greater or lesser degree, each component of your guitar can make a difference in the sound. And some things not so much, and some people cannot tell the difference anyway.

Blessed are those that cannot tell the difference, for they do not need to be checking this forum much at all.

My favorite combo is probably spruce over rosewood, but I own many with other woods too.

Don
.

I agree Toby, back and sides wood makes very little difference to the sound. I've been playing for almost 60 years and a good guitar is a good guitar.

I think it can make a difference, but I think the other variables in the build of a guitar also make a difference. It is hard to isolate the “thing” that makes a good guitar.

However, as long as man exists, I suspect we will continue to debate the benefits of mahogany vs. rosewood, or any other wood for that matter. Guilty as charged over here.

There was blind study done a few years back with designed to be identical guitars with different backs and side, and with the guitars used in their experiment, blind listening couldn't tell.

This surprised me in that with the kind of garden variety guitars I play and audition I hear what I think it a significant difference between rosewood and mahogany B&S. Rosewood a bit of "smile EQ curve" with less midrange. Bass can be either "that low-end power I want" or overpowering, depending. Mahogany, more mid focused (or less mid-cut, after all, what's "normal"). Rosewood can be overtone rich, mahogany more defined -- but I think strings, players, and top tuning etc can make that less predictable.

But I could be wrong.

I've been at it for 62 years and I agree completely - a good guitar is a good guitar. Just too many variables to quantify - strings, picks, bracing wood, top wood, b/s wood, fret material, nut/saddle material, fingerboard/bridge wood, room finishes, room sizes, carpet/no carpet, and even the number of people in the room and where they happen to be sitting....and...all this goes completely out the window when you plug a guitar equipped with a (**plug in favorite brand here**) pickup into whatever brand of PA happens to be available at the time. FWIW, I prefer mahogany guitars over rosewood and have mostly owned mahogany throughout my playing career - starting with my first guitar which was a 1936, all mahogany, Martin 0-17, then a new D18 ($325) in 1970, a Gallagher G45 later, then a D18V, up to my present 000-18. There have been a few rosewood guitars along the way but they've not lasted long - couldn't tell you exactly why - they just didn't measure up to mahogany. Play what feels and sounds good to you.