I personally believe the blind tests where listeners were unable to reliably tell which guitar had what wood, and that the back and side wood selection of a typically braced (heavy thick braces on the back to deaden all resonance, increasingly sides designed to be acoustically dead so as to not rob energy from the top) side and back of a flat-top acoustic make very little difference. So, having answered my question about tone, it comes down to rarity, tradition, and beauty. Brazilian rosewood has all of that in spades, and it costs a lot more, and so it must be better... There is another facet to this - brazilian rosewood guitars have, for many decades, been the top of the line, the best made by the best luthiers. They really should sound better, even if the tone is a byproduct of the wood and not a direct result of the wood.
Brian
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Brian Evans
Around 15 archtops, electrics, resonators, a lap steel, a uke, a mandolin, some I made, some I bought, some kinda showed up and wouldn't leave. Tatamagouche Nova Scotia.
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