In one of those links that I cited earlier, Steve Kinnaird points out that there are (were?) several different species sold as bubinga... even from from different genus. He points to description at LMI which seems gone by this point (their bubinga is currently listed as Guibourtia demeusei there). So that might account for the differing experiences with it as much or more than how close to quarter it's sawn.
Anyway, I took Bruce's advice and ordered a nicely quartered, straight grained set of EIR. And maybe two sets... one with slightly less straight grain. Didn't mean to.
I put an offer in on the straight grained set on eBay that was scheduled to end later tonight, and so was waiting to hear back. In the interim I got what I thought was a counter offer (ok, didn't read it super carefully), accepted it and paid for it, but was then confused when I went to look at the listing and saw that the grain on the sides wasn't as straight as I remembered. Went and looked at the set I thought I had bought and found that the offer had been accepted and was awaiting payment. Wait, WHAT? I had somehow bought two sets? All I thought I did was accept the counter offer? NO! It was an unsolicited offer for a different set that I had looked at from the same seller, lot #235, when the one I wanted was #234. The message was apparently generated by eBay, not the seller, as it's archived under the "Messages From eBay" tab.
I'd never seen that before, and I'm not thrilled about it. I requested the cancellation of the extraneous order. Seller has 100% positive feedback on over 10k transactions and offers free returns, so it shouldn't be a problem. But I was flustered.
Anyway, here's the set I intentionally bought:
