Acoustics With Satin Finishes Are Superior

[diminishedlogic]

I have played many different acoustics ranging from 100-50,000 at various new york music shops.

Not that there arent exceptions, but to my ear generally the acoustics without the glossy finish have more harmonics and string noise. Also have more volume and overall better tone.

Does anyone else share this view?

[dazco]

Of course tone is subjective, so maybe my opinion isn't worth much. But i HAVE been playing since '72 so i think my ears are tweaked. Actually, maybe too much so for my own good. No, not maybe...they are. And yesterday i picked up o0ne of those mahogany topped martins just a few days after buying a guild GAD25 at the same place, also an all mahogany dread. The guild slayed it without a doubt if i have any kind of ear for acoustic tone. It was a wide enough margin that i can't imagine anyone playing them both and disagreeing. (of course there will always be a few tho)

anyways, point it, the martin is all satin and the guild has what many call a super glossy thick poly finish. i don't think my idea of good acoustic tone is far different than most guys with my years, and you couldn't give me 10 of those martins for my guild. Well, of course thats not true....i'd sell the 10 martins and buy more guild GAD series. :D

Seriously, i've had a boatload of electrics and acoustics with all types of finishes from nitro to poly and satin, and i have seen zero evidence of finish making any difference because if i rank them in order, no particular finish shows up as more consistantly better, tho i must say i never had a satin i thought was exceptional. Design and wood type and mother nature's kiss of luck is everything. And in acoustics design includes bracing of course, a detail which is probably 4,256,567% more important than finish. By the way, none of the satins i've owned or played were the best ones actually. i used to praise those satin seagulls *for the price*, but the super glossy Guild GAD series makes them sound mediocre. Again, all just opinion but one cultivated from almost 40 years of guitars.

[diminishedlogic]

I hadnt thought about the protection aspect.

However if you dent the guitar then you dent it regardless of finish. I like your information on the satin finish.

I disagree about the bracing aspect, it certainly plays a part but the gloss doesnt allow the top back and sides to resonate like the satin guitars do.

[Tricks]

Reminds me of a photographic analogy. It used to be said that German lenses were superior because they got their sharpness through the properties of the glass alone, whereas the Japanese lenses got theirs through increased contrast. Perhaps scientifically speaking this was fact. However, the eyes never really picked it up, it was an argument largely leant on by the boffins, to the rest it was a bit of a hair splitting exercise.
You could possibly be right, personally (and this is simply my opinion and taste of course), I've never liked the look of the satin finish.

[jackaroo]

Not a winnable argument. As you could never play the exact same guitar side by side with two different finishes.

I think there's enough variance in the wood and construction to account for a huge tonal swing between guitars built to the exact same specs. One D-18 sounds great the next is a dog... so I'd put it down to the particular guitar.

Some things can be seen as the "DNA" of a particular model, but even then you have to be prepared for some type of mutations. I've heard D-28s that were brighter than a D-18 and some small guitars are louder than Jumbos. It's the specific instrument that's really the deciding point for me as a listener. Yet I do fall back on certain generalities when I'm looking for a type of sound. That is to say, when looking for the tone of a D-18 I'll start with D-18s and not Jumbo bodied Maples. But who knows...that old J-200 could have the sound I really wanted.

I do think that new guitars with thick finishes tend to sound clunky and dead, satin finished instruments if built like crap are going to sound bad too.

BTW- Bracing is SIGNIFICANTLY more important that the finish choice on an instrument as it relates to tone. Just compare an LG-1 with an LG-2 and you'll hear that an X braced guitar like the LG-2 is a whole world apart from the tone of the ladder braced LG-1.

[tonesurfer]

I have played many different acoustics ranging from 100-50,000 at various new york music shops.

Not that there arent exceptions, but to my ear generally the acoustics without the glossy finish have more harmonics and string noise. Also have more volume and overall better tone.

Does anyone else share this view?
It's a weak generalization at best. I'd assume you played guitars like old martins from their golden age where their finish has worn off. There is a tendency for guitars like that to have been played to the point where they have simply become more vocal or opened up. It doesn't mean the worn finish is the cause of it. There's a lot of old guitars with worn finishes too that don't sound very good.

[tonesurfer]

BTW- Bracing is SIGNIFICANTLY more important that the finish choice on an instrument as it relates to tone. Just compare an LG-1 with an LG-2 and you'll hear that an X braced guitar like the LG-2 is a whole world apart from the tone of the ladder braced LG-1.
Bracing is a lot more real a factor than finish. The holy grail martins had the bracing inside trimmed down so the guitars could vibrate more. The problem was durability, they had too many warrenty claims so they stopped doing this for many years to make the guitars tougher. All steel string guitars (with a few exceptions) have the X brace as it reenforces the top well to deal with the tension of steel strings.

[diminishedlogic]

I would have agreed until I had been hitting the acoustic rooms at various guitar stores for several months and realized this.

Certainly this is all to be taken with a grain of salt, if you like what youre playing Good for you the world needs more music. I'm just sharing what ive found. Which is that the thin that seems to set the great sounding ones with the most volume apart from others is the finish.

Seems ridiculous since what we as guitar players look for on paper is wood selection bracing fret size etc...

[jackaroo]

you're trippin'

enjoy the ride

[The Kid]

Bracing is a lot more real a factor than finish. The holy grail martins had the bracing inside trimmed down so the guitars could vibrate more. The problem was durability, they had too many warrenty claims so they stopped doing this for many years to make the guitars tougher. All steel string guitars (with a few exceptions) have the X brace as it reenforces the top well to deal with the tension of steel strings.

The overwhelming majority of production guitars including high end production guitars are over braced. They have to be to take the abuse of people banging on them in the music stores. You can get a guitar re-voiced to sound better by a a skilled luthier.

[tonesurfer]

I would have agreed until I had been hitting the acoustic rooms at various guitar stores for several months and realized this.

Certainly this is all to be taken with a grain of salt, if you like what youre playing Good for you the world needs more music. I'm just sharing what ive found. Which is that the thin that seems to set the great sounding ones with the most volume apart from others is the finish.

Seems ridiculous since what we as guitar players look for on paper is wood selection bracing fret size etc...
Kind of reminds me how when ice cream sales goes up in the USA deaths dramatically increase in India. However, it's because ice cream is popular in the summer here and that's also when monsoon season takes place in India. Sometimes things can be misleading.

[jackaroo]

ha!

[dazco]

Kind of reminds me how when ice cream sales goes up in the USA deaths dramatically increase in India. However, it's because ice cream is popular in the summer here and that's also when monsoon season takes place in India. Sometimes things can be misleading.That pretty much sums it up surfer. To those who it may have gotten past, his point being there are too many variables to be sure so we tend to look for reasons and come up with whatever seems to make sense to us. My only observation really is that i have yet to hear satin guitars generally sounding better, and the most phenominal acoustics i have played were glossy. None were satin. I don't however feel that means satin is worse, just that there are more glossy ones. thats the kind of thinking you need to do or you fall into the analogy tonesurfer made. By the way, i stripped a horribly thick poly finish off a strat once and used it naked from then on. (the guitar, not me :)) i wasn't sure i noticed any difference or not. If there was it was insignificant at most. Besides, who's to say finishes don't actually ENHANCE tone in some way? We aren't experts here are we? We're just guitar players trying to come up with reasons that make sense to us. All i will say for sure is fact, and that would be i haven't noticed satin finishes sounding better at all. Like i said, the super glossy guild all mahogany D25 i bought was much more resonant than the martin satin all mahogany, and i don't feel that was luck of the draw either because i notice the same resonant sound from most all the GAD's i played and have played that martin model along with other satin martins and they always sounded dead to me compared to the GAD. That does not definitively say that satin is better, but it IS a test done with the ear instead of a thought i conjured up and figured makes sense to me. (not that i don't do that, but i do realize it doesn't make it fact) i would trust my ear much sooner than my deductive skills in the field of physics which i have no training in. And my ear has shown this subect to be different than the OP's belief.

[tonesurfer]

It's really about the wood. The bracing allows the wood to move more or less freely. Finish would have a minor impact at best. The holy grail sound comes from a crystalization process of the wood resins which allow the wood to resonate more vocally.

[musicofanatic5]

"My only observation really is that i have yet to hear satin guitars generally sounding better, and the most phenominal acoustics i have played were glossy. None were satin"


My experience as well. And more than a couple flat top gtrs have crossed my lap. I would suggest the possibility of wishful thinking or grasping at straws driving the propsed theory. Of course, I will freely admit to bias. To me the satin/matte finish looks cheap or at least "not done". It would take a fairly stupendous satin finished gtr to get me to buy it. Then, of course, I would have to poke my eyes out with a stick...

[dazco]

The holy grail sound comes from a crystalization process of the wood resins which allow the wood to resonate more vocally

Said the exact same thing many times. Wood is fiber and resin. Resin when soft dampens tone, tho after many years it dries till it's as you said crystaline at which point. Thats what i believe anyways, and it would be supported by the fact an unplayed guitar can improve drastically with time as in the story i told here the other day. Same with the finish, tho IMO to a considerably lesser extent.

[RustyAxe]

The title of this thread is just so wrong ... :huh

[Oasis.Guitar]

I have played many different acoustics ranging from 100-50,000 at various new york music shops.

Not that there arent exceptions, but to my ear generally the acoustics without the glossy finish have more harmonics and string noise. Also have more volume and overall better tone.

Does anyone else share this view?


Not exactly....spend a little extra time buffing a satin finish and voila.. you now have a gloss finish....is that really going to make the guitar better or worse...not to me.

However, if you were to say, "acoustics with a french polilsh finish are superior" then I'd sall, "Amen brother".

[steve_man]

Maybe you're right. The way a satin finish is achieved is by adding a flattening agent (silica powder either dry or in solution) to the exact same finish normally applied to glossy guitars. The flattening agent rises to the surface of the finish when curing and remains there. Because of the layer of silica crystals, the light no longer refracts unidirectionally but rather omni-directionally. With an adequate amount of flattening agent the finish can be rendered completely flat. Because the finish is de-glossed by the flattening agent, the maker doesn't need to spray as much finish on the guitar as he would normally do with straight gloss, which is required if the finish is to appear glass smooth with all small imperfections filled and buffed out. That takes more finish. So, yea, the finish is thinner.

Advantages: Less build up of finish on the wood that might cause some diminishing of the sonic properties of the woods.

Disadvantages: Less protection due to the thinner finish. And, because the silica is a layer on the finish, it can be worn off quite easily through normal use without any practicable way to restore it without re-spraying it. Buffing it off completely is quite a chore and once done, the finish is quite thin and much more fragile than it was with the flattening agent layer. One might ensure the guitar they choose with the semi-gloss look is a polyurethane finish because it holds onto the surface silica much better than lacquer. But, the trade-off here is poly finishes, weight-for-weight with lacquer, are more sound inhibiting.

I prefer gloss finishes on guitars. My ears just don't pick up the subtleties of the differences between the finishes and gloss offers the best protection and look over the long haul.

:agree

Yup, they look nice when they are new, but I do not like the shiny area that develops on them after a bit of use. I much prefer a gloss finish, at least on the body of the acoustic. A nice satin neck finish is the way to go, IMO...but I like them either way.