archtop tom

Wow, funny you should mention this. It's something that haunts me to this day & often comes up in 'conversations' with my wife - usually heated ones. A while back I went on an upgrading spree and replaced nuts, saddles and p-ups on a bunch of guitars. One of them was a Yamaha NTX elec nylon classical. I had the plastic saddle switched out for a handmade bone one. The work was impeccable, but when I got it home and played it for her, it had lost all its soul. Not to say the sound wasn't beautiful - it was, but that's the point. It was perfect to the point of being generic and had lost all the dark earthiness of the plastic. My take-away from this: Tone is subjective, not only from listener-to-listener, but from instrument-to-material. Maybe it's a 'lipsitck on a pig' thing, but some materials just sound inherently better on certain instruments. Hope I didn't derail the topic, but like I said it still haunts me....