Guitar Evaluation

[itsdono]

I'm taking delivery of a high quality guitar and have a question for luthiers (or other experts) out there:

How would you objectively determine if a guitar produced high quality sound?

For example - Would you compare intonation at the 12th and first frets, and if so, is there an acceptable percentage of tonal variation? What about quality of workmanship - would it matter to sound quality if there were small amounts of glue showing inside the box? Any other ways you would use to determine quality of sound, i.e. volume.

What I'm getting at is whether there are objective, measurable ways to determine if a guitar sound is high quality, without resorting to some high-tech equipment to measure it, or if it is simply a subjective thing.

[daniel711]

I'm not trying to be the least bit condescending here, but if you cannot tell for yourself if a guitar has good sound quality, then why are you buying an expensive guitar? Intonation and sound quality are two completely separate issues, but if the intonation's bad then who cares how good it sounds?

Good sound IS subjective, however, it is very often something that experienced ears can agree on. There is no OBJECTIVE measure of quality sound that I know of. Remember though, that even the best guitar in the world can't play itself. Unlike the piano, a guitarist "creates" his/her own sound with good technique.

[itsdono]

Daniel711, I guess what I'm aiming for is input on objective methods to evaluate sound quality in a guitar. If as you say, experienced ears can agree on what makes sound quality good, then there must be a way to measure that, eh?

I am reminded of a story...I can't recall where I read it, where a guitar master was playing his guitar in a recording studio, and someone remarked on what a great-sounding guitar it was.

He then put the guitar down and replied, "How does it sound now?"

[C. Vega]

Just because experienced ears can agree doesn't necessarily mean that they always will.
Same goes for food critics, wine tasters, stylistic trend setters and other mavens of the critical persuasion. There may well be some agreement but it's still just a subjective opinion no matter how much flowery blather gets tossed around.

[Pepe Vergara]

Play it. If you like it, then it is a great guitar for you. Period.

I paid $200 pesos (approx. US$20) for my first guitar in Mexico. It sounded wonderful and was perfectly finished when I bought it. One year later, after about 6 months of lessons and comparing the sound to my teacher's, I found that it was not as great sound. The finish was lacquer, I noticed that teh French polish on my teacher's gutiar was more appealing to me. Then I bought a 4000 pesos, and so for. The more I learned to hear and play, the better my purchase got. Same thing happened when I started making guitar. The first one sounded good, but looked a bit sloppy. I did not sell it. The second sounded better, looked better, and so for. After 27, I continue to find that I can do better and better. However, I tried to have my customer come to my shop and play my No. 1 and #2 because that is all I have that I have not sold. They always tell me: I want it sounding like the No.2. It doesnot matte the look. However, by now, they look and sound great to me.

[daniel711]

Itsdono - Your little anecdote is precisely the point!! Are you sure you understand it? It is the PLAYER who makes the good sound.....like I said, the best guitar in the world can't play itself! When someone tells me how great my guitar sounds I hold it up and say, "I don't hear anything". Same story, different variation.

Sr. Vega - I simply said that good sound was VERY OFTEN something that experienced ears can agree on, not "always"...

[keith]

quote was by chet atkins

intonation: is this the same as notes being true? one test i have seen done repeatedly is to get a electronic tuner and play the string open, then at the 12th fret and then the harmonic at the 12th fret. all 3 should be about the same registering on the electronic tuner.

quality of sound: to follow daniel's line: your ears alone should be the judge since you will be the one that has to listen to it for X years. think about the woman/man (whatever your case may be) that gets your juices flowing. why are his/her characteristics juice producing and not characteristics of your neighbor, etc.? same goes with quality of sound.

here is a guitar analogy that follows c.vega's line: john williams plays a greg smallman and apparently really likes the tone; others hate the tone. is the tone quality bad? not to john williams who lives with the guitar day in and day out. get 4 experts and 3 may hate it and 1 may like it. but ultimately it is whether j.w. likes it and can make it sing as he wants it to sing.

play the damn thing. if it floats your boat, enjoy the ride.

[itsdono]

Daniel711 - I understand the quote... I was merely providing it as an ironic anecdote to the discussion. :wink: However, each guitar does have it's own "sound" that is a result of it's particular materials, design and construction. In my case, I know the sound I am looking for - a darker, more somber sound appropriate to many of the pieces that I now play. And sure, I can subjectively listen to a guitar and know whether it fits what I'm looking for. But I'm curious if anyone has done an objective analysis of the various sound qualities in a guitar.

Pepe and C. Vega - 1. intonation accuracy, 2. volume of sound, 3. balance of treble vs. bass, 4. quality of sound - somber or sweet or bright, 5. ease of playability. These and more I've seen used as the "flowery blather" to describe fine guitars. I'm just trying to get beyond that blather to see if there are ways to objectively measure these aspects.

For example, I visited the web site of the luthier Jeremy Locke:

http://theclassicalguitar.com/index.htm

He has written extensively on the subject of intonation accuracy, so it appears that there is a way to obectively measure each guitar's accuracy of intonation. But on the subject of intonation, how much variation is considered too much?

Pepe - when you build a guitar, how do you adjust the intonation to the most precise intonation possible? Is this the only category of the 5 that I mentioned above that is objectively quantifiable?

Keith - thanks for the quote attribution and the input.

[Pepe Vergara]

........ In my case, I know the sound I am looking for - a darker, more somber sound appropriate to many of the pieces that I now play. And sure, I can subjectively listen to a guitar and know whether it fits what I'm looking for. But I'm curious if anyone has done an objective analysis of the various sound qualities in a guitar.

Pepe - when you build a guitar, how do you adjust the intonation to the most precise intonation possible? Is this the only category of the 5 that I mentioned above that is objectively quantifiable?


My native language is Spanish, not English. I still do not understand certain subjective ways to evaluate a sound, for example, somber, sweet, dark. In a way, I am happy because I do not have to deal with it. I would do like Benito Huipe: hand you the guitar and let you play it and answer your own questions. However, as an engineer, I have done a lot of mathematical modeling of water flows, seismic conditions, weather patterns, electricity, etc., and I understand what your question is about. Before, I do that, I must clarify that I chose guitarmaking the way the old makers did it in Spain: not the way it is done by some luthiers, in which scientific instrumentation experimentation is done.

Yes, there is a way to tune the top. There are couple of theories and one Ph.D. thesis around that allows taht calibration using mechanical devices. There is a home-made experiment with glitters and some sound source in which the frequency can be measured and controlled. There is a guy named David Hurd in Hawaii that wrote a book based on his experiments on tunning tops, etc (he does mostly ukuleles). However, due to the non-homogeneous properties of wood (not matter how homogeneous is the certain European spruce), by the time a guitar is finished this way, and another guitar is finished the way Torres did it, they may sound the same, or the done manually by ear may sound a lot better. This is to take care of the box. To verify the quality of the soundbox after the guitar is done, you would not know if it was tuned by ear or by mechanical devices. However, you can connect a series of meters to try to measure the fequency of the sounds and the harmonic they produce when the strings are plucked. Some people do it by ear too. that is what I refer to.

The intonation is more scientifically determined. The ideal fretboard would be fretless, just like the violin. However, it would be a lot difficult to play guitar because it will depend on the ear of the player. The system used so set the intonation by frets is also an empirical formula that make several assumptions (which I will have to study before I am able to present in a simple way). The truth is that no guitar can be tuned completely. That is, you can tune the guitar so that the first position notes are in tune, but the extreme notes will not, or they will be approximately. That is due to the equal temperamento method. It assumes taht the note is the same in a given fret when it is not. Again. I am rusty on this. It is been a long time since I read it.

Volume can be measure in decibels and you can get a meter for that easily. Balance of treble? Balance....I try to understand balance as the fact that every string comes out with the same volume, duration of vibration, etc? Is taht what you mean? As opposed to boomy, a guitar must be balanced? If that is the case, I had my own theory that I tried with an experimental guitar. I made all the break angles of a guitar (at the nut as well at the bridge) equal. Yes, I had to twist the headstock. I does not shows unless you are looking for the twist. I think I got my perfectly balance guitar. That is the no. 2 I was talking about that everyone who plays it wants to buy it.

To make the story short, if you know the basis of what you are looking for, you can take the guitar to a lab of a university that has the proper equipments and conduct the tests you want. If you know them, yo may have to direct the operators, which are usually graduate students.

[J]

For sound quality..
Intonation and Volume are all you can really objectively measure. Otherwise it's the player's preference. There are general standards such as eveness of tone and volume, clarity, etc... but all of those are subject to the player.

Here's a story. I went to Guitar Center to look for a beater guitar that felt similar to my then current guitar. I played about 10 different guitars of varying qualities and prices. I discarded half of these for various reasons such as the wrong neck thickness, weight, body size, etc... So I played through the remaining five and picked the one that I could make sound the best based upon my playing style. Another player may well prefer one of the instruments I discarded based upon they're playing style. It's preference. Anyways a beginning guitar player in the room looking for his first CG chose to purchase the same model guitar I chose without even playing it based upon how well I made it sound. Truth is there were clearly better sounding guitars in the room. I just couldn't play them as nicely without a bit of getting used to them.

So you may ask, why is there such a difference in guitar prices? I would say construction, intonation, volume, materials and of course the brand name. These certainly don't make a great guitar by everyone's standards, but they are important contributing features. If you are in the resale business, base your investments on these features and with time there will be a player that will pay top dollar for each of these instruments.

[C. Vega]

Or as they say in the car business, "There's an a** for every seat."

[Libre]

Of course there is an objective test for the quality of a guitar's sound. I'm absolutely AMAZED that NONE of you (guys) came up with it. It is the following:
If it gets you laid, the sound is good.

[keith]

libre: i would disagree with you about a guitar getting you laid. to paraphrase the saying: 'it ain't the meat it's the motion' we get: 'it ain't the guitar it's the player" i.e., someone who can really let them fingers fly will attract the babes. of course wearing a rolex, driving a lexus, and owning a fleta may help the process along.

i think a better way to look at the guitar with respect to the quality of sound would be: "if the guitar were a babe would you jump her bones?". if you say yes, you have found your guitar.

itsdono: get a tuner, decibel reading machine, doopler radar and measure to the cows come home. ultimately your ears and hands have to be the judge.

[M. Stephenson]

I have to agree with many of the people that have already posted about the subjectivness of sound quality.

When I judge a guitar I look for the following:
* Proper intonation (objective)
* Proper action (objective)
* Proper relationship of the strings to the neck (objective - you would be suprised at how often I have come across guitars where the strings were so close to the edge of the fretboard that is took considerable effort to not pull them off the fretboard when playing)
* Feel of the neck (subjective - I like thin, wide necks)
* Look of the guitar (subjective)
* Above all else: How the guitar affects my spirit (subjective)

If a guitar moves me to feel musical, then I pay attention to it. Musicality is the overiding criteria.

[Libre]

Good analysis, M.
There is another perameter, that I realize might be of no importance to most players. I did see someone mention it one time on a thread awhile back.
That perameter is the SMELL of the guitar. Woods and glues exude fragrance. The guitar I own that I like the smell of the best, is a red cedar Jose Ramirez. It's an electric classical. It smells like the most fragrant forest - you could doze off with it, dreaming of the most succulant fragrances - perfect for Barrios Sueno en la Floresta (a sleep in the flower bed). Unfortunately, I like almost nothing else about the guitar, so it never gets played anymore. I do take it out to sniff it every so often.
My John Price guitar has a pretty neutral smell. Once I started usinc a dampit in in though, it smelled really bad. Kind of like an old sponge (yeeek). That's because a dampit is made of a sponge and it gets old. I had to put an eletric fan by the sound hole and blow air into the guitar for a few days, and I still couldn't totally get rid of that smell. It went away on its own after awhile.
So, that's me, always shooting into things from a different angle. I'm frequently misunderstood - like I am being right now int the RACER thread I started - I have to go look there now to see how I need to defend myself against the onslaughts of those that think conventionally. I'm not one of them.

[APERTURE]

ITSDONO, What kind of guitar are you getting? And what guitar are you currently playing? I took possession of a custom ordered, luthier built guitar early last year after having played an Alvarez/Yairi (pretty decent) guitar exclusively for years. I still play both pretty much every day. The differences I noticed immediately were increased volume and greater clarity. Harmonics should ring out loud and clear. The action and setup should be very good - you might notice that it requires less effort to play (barring at the 1st fret, for example). I believe I can play cleaner on the luthier built guitar. Keep in mind that any brand new guitar requires time to break in and develop its full tone potential. It will change a lot over the first few months and slowly for some time after. As far as the workmanship goes - a high end guitar should be flawless. If it's not then refuse the guitar and get your money back.
James

[itsdono]

These posts are all good info, though I especially like the one from Libre about getting laid...that would definitely test the quality of the "wood." :shock:

I wonder if anyone has ever seen an actual "guide" that details all the various elements of classical guitar choices and how to approach the purchase of one from a rational prespective as well as debunking the many myths that seem to exist out there. It could be titled, "Classical Guitar Buying Guide." (...for Dummies, if we want to make it cheeky) I've seen the general one that GSI has on this site, but have never seen a detailed one. It's probably an academic exercise, since the classical guitar buying public market may be fairly small and all the classical guitar stores wouldn't want to carry it because it would debunk some of their cherished notions that they fool, I mean communicate to, unsuspecting buyers. Just a thought...

[J]

itsdono,
I think the main issue with your question is the audience you are asking. To a musician their instrument is almost always a very personal thing. Their idea of an instrument's value is based on their own expiriences with their instrument. Let's say the retail value of one's instrument is $2000. After years of playing it one becomes emotionally attached and may not dream of ever selling it for even twice the price. Yet in the end a store would still put it for sale for the retail value.

If you want a more objective stance on what a good quality guitar is, I feel you would find a better answer asking a salesperson, dealer, or a buyer at a store. Someone who has less attachment to individual instruments.

[Pepe Vergara]

Remember from Marketing 101 that things have three value: (1) Intrinsic value (almos zero in a guitar, you cannot eat it, wear it, or live in it); (2) Sentimental value, what you think the guitar is worth --usually a high value for the owner--; and (3) market value, which is what the market is willing to pay for it. Very seldom you will sell it for the sentimental value, unless it has a sentimental value for the buyer. The market value is determined by the relationship between demand and offer. If the demand is high and the offer is low, the market tends to go up. If the demand is low and the offer is high, the market value tends to go down. Anybody can explain the difference between high-end guitars and non-high end guitars? Do you think the high-end guitars have a higher demand than offer?