♥ I am and will always be a scientist.  As such, I like to measure things and record things and look at the natural world objectively especially in the world of music. This in no way takes away from the “magic” of music.  Contrarily, I believe it adds to the beauty of it all.

♥ It turns out, it is very difficult to describe sound to someone else (as you can attest to as you read some of my sound descriptions below).  So what I have done is record what I hear, adding hard measurements along the way, and sharing this with you so you can hear (and sometimes see) the differences.  This allows you to make clearer choices in the custom decision process.

♥ Please do not let my musical ability (or lack thereof) cloud your judgement.  Neither let the fact that, in some tests, especially with new strings, the instrument is a bit out of tune somewhere along the process.  Listen past these mistakes to the main purpose – what is the difference in the quality of the sound resulting from the changes made?

♥ So here, …  … hear:

♥ Bone nuts and saddles are superior to plastic nuts and saddles.

1. Replacing both the nut and the saddle on a cheap Protocol acoustic guitar.

I hear a slightly fuller sound with the bone, maybe less “muddy” with better definition of pure tones.  The sound file actually shows greater sustain in each wave “packet”.  It was also definitely louder (I had to decrease the bone version by 1.2 decibels just to keep it in the right range for you to listen to).

2.  Replacing the saddle only on an Alvarez acoustic.

Solid wood guitar tops have a fuller range of frequencies and longer sustain than do plywood tops.

More to come …