Apart from Alistair or Sean offering an opinion, this is the best feedback we're going to get on this subject, and is what I recall reading in the past about the non/effect of wood veneer on Emeralds, and that CA gloss vs. raw vs. the old "road tough" finish each with notable tone differences. I don't know how thick Emerald woody veneers are, but I looked up cocobolo veneers available online and although they may vary in thickness, they can be as thin as 1/42". So, veneers are likely real thin and it seems plausible, especially when encased in resin, that any change in tone could be indistinguishable. Makes sense to me. For anyone buying Emerald woodies, I wouldn't go into a purchase expecting anything other than a visual delight.

Wouldn't it similar for a Black Ice Rainsong? A soundboard of different weaves cemented together in different orientations etc, seems it would change the tone but, I don't think it does and neither does Rainsong I believe. The differences are so small if they are there, that you can't tell any difference. But it's cool!

Steve, I'm glad you brought Rainsong up. Tonally there is little to no difference between Rainsongs standard cross weave, and Black Ice soundboards, which is not surprising since they are the same material, with the same pre-preg construction. The fact that the CF goes from criss-cross, to random pattern on the last layer would have little affect on tone. Now when you change the material completely, like on Rainsongs Hybrid, and Unidirectional soundboards, the tonal difference becomes obvious. With tens of thousands of Rainsong guitars out in the wild, all this has been well documented.

To suggest to a client interested in a Black Ice Rainsong for it's esthetic appeal that it will sound the same as the Concert Series they tried, and liked, would be dishonest.

Benderman's testimony pretty well speaks to the fact that there appears to be little or no difference in sound between the CF and CF/Veneer Emerald guitars.

I think Ted's testimony speaks to Rainsong's continual R&D in controlling and managing sound.

All in all, the CF makers are a heavy duty crew, exploring new frontiers and giving us some sweet options.

Actually, Evan, my earlier post speaks directly to emerald guitars with and without wood, and it's based on plenty of on hands experience.


Glad it make sense to someone. ;)

My guess for the Emeralds is that there is a measurable (statistically significant) difference (assuming we can gather a large enough sample) between the sound characteristics of the woodies and artisan X20s but there is no measurable difference between the artisan and the opus variety. I would also guess that there is no discernible difference (practical difference) between the woody variety and other varieties (as already commented on by Benderman).

This is pretty close to what I do for my day job, so it's TIME TO SET UP AN EXPERIMENT to put this question to bed assuming we can get a sensitive enough dosimeter and/or frequency analyzer, a dozen or so of each guitar type preferably from similar batch-years and a quiet enough location to do the testing. Obviously we will need the same strings and set up across all guitars. These sort of experiments are often pretty fun and might even warrant a paper or two or at least a good story over a pint about how we ended up with 3 dozen guitars.

Anybody want to set up the go fund me?


...crickets...

Nice try there Tom, but that's not in the spirit of the forum, what we like is a couple o' people with some hands on experience and a whole bunch of others with some pre-conceived notions and we'll all duke it out until the thread is locked . :D


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Tom;

That's one way of doing it. Rather than go fund, I think I'll just go buy a woody and check it out.

I was thinking: if someone wanted to send me their Opus or non-woody Artisan X20, I will do a fair, honest, and impartial test. In the meantime, I'm going to go play my X20 Custom woody... 'cause it just sounds SO good!

:evilgrin:

Looking at the posts till now, it seems to me there's really been only one rock solid, irrefutable post on this thread regarding veneers. That comes from benderman57:

"I own a regular X20 Artisan and a Woody Cocobolo X20. With the exact same strings on them I can not tell a difference. I'm not saying there might not be a slight difference but nothing my ears or anyone else around me can hear."

Good enough for me. IMHO, no other comments carry the weight of this one. He owns and plays both. This is the gold standard comment regarding Emerald veneers, period.

If I fell in love with the look of one of Emerald's veneers, I wouldn't give a second thought or hesitate a moment about placing an order in that direction.

One of each is just not enough because there may be reason to account for variation within each category. This is done by both multiple experiments with one guitar and using multiple guitars. I think I could manage well enough to get some useful information with 3 guitars per category. Let's see. I have one X20 Opus on hand, so that means I only need at least 11 more guitars in order to get this experiment off the ground. Glad you are supporting this endeavor by buying a woody. PM me when you are ready to send it over, and I will give you an address then. Only need 10 more people to volunteer.

Thank you.

How many warnings before I am banned?

I agree. Any eyewitness has bias, but that's probably the best we can do on this and many other questions that rely on user evaluation. There are ways of testing this question in an relatively unbiased fashion as I noted above, but I am not going to hold my breath. In the meantime may you play what you love and love what you play.

I think Ted's comments carry just as much weight, more exposure and more guitars to compare. Of course that may not be the answer you were looking for?? Either way, I suspect the difference would be pretty small.

It is a bit like navigation: I've driven vessels where multiple GPS systems are used... they are all very close, but not exact, to each other. The difference is insignificant, but measurable. If you need to know exactly where you are, just use one GPS. ;)

I have one X20. It sounds great. If it can be shown that a non-woody sounds ________ (pick one: warmer, crisper, louder, quieter, woodier, non-woodier, bluesier, bassier, hairier, bigger, smaller, blah, blah), mine will still sound great.

When buying any guitar from afar, there are expectations... and when it arrives, and it is as good as you hoped, relief. This X20 vaulted over my other guitars, wood and carbon fiber, as "my favorite." Must be the wood veneer. :evilgrin: