New redesigned Emerald X20!

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by steelvibe

I guess it is too much of a mouthful to call the holes on our guitars "Helmholtz frequency port"? Or even worse it could be called the "Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz frequency port". So, we went with "sound hole" instead. Make sense to me

But then we have "sound ports" too, which are really just auxiliary sound holes. And the Emeralds have sort of a combined sound hole/port. It's all very confusing...

[Earl49]

Got it. Back when I was doing stage hand stuff at music festivals, I would always carefully explain in the green room that we would set up the microphone pointing at the neck/body join from about 45° off axis, which helps to avoid excessive boominess and bass through the PA. Almost without fail, as soon as I walked back stage, the player would move themselves or the mic to put it back centered on the hole. [sigh] I guess they did not care about a natural acoustic sound after all.

[eatswodo]

Originally Posted by Earl49

There is a brand of acoustic guitar out there (the name escapes me) that does not even have a sound hole or a side sound port.

For a moment, I thought you might be referring to Batson but on visiting their website, their guitars do have soundports.

Originally Posted by raysachs

But then we have "sound ports" too, which are really just auxiliary sound holes. And the Emeralds have sort of a combined sound hole/port. It's all very confusing...

I think what it comes down to is that there has to be a hole somewhere.

Otherwise, the body will be trying to behave as if you're sneezing while you hold your nose - that energy has to go somewhere. But, the bulk of the actual sound is being generated by the top (the 'speaker cone'), not the opening (the 'port').

Here's one of the finest acoustic guitars I've ever played - a Seaton Maple Sugar. No front soundhole, and a carefully arranged array of orifices in the upper bout. My wife, who was standing 6-8 feet away from me when I tried it out, remarked on how wonderful it sounded - and she's not prone to react to my hyperbole, especially when looking at a $5k+ pricetag.

[Earl49]

It probably was Batson (sure looks right) and my "remembery" was wrong about the sound ports.