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Spruce Vs. Cedar top?


Bulkan ni Angus

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Hi. The difference between the two top woods comes in the tone each is intended to produce. The sitka spruce top found on most guitars produces a clean crisp sound and may be a bit brighter in tone. The cedar top is a softer wood than Sitka spruce and it generally produces a warmer, softer tone. Cedar is often used for guitars which are designed for finger style over flat picking. The DR-500mce is a dred great for strumming, flatpicking, or a combination therein....the EF with the cedar top is designed more for finger style playing though many people still say a pick sounds good on it. Based on that, you might better be able to choose. Also the DR-500 is a Mahogany body...while the EF is Rosewood..two very different sounds come from both guitars because of the top woods..the body woods...and finally the body shapes, which is different on these two guitars. Hope this helps you.

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One of the main things you will hear is that cedar does not require any breaking in period like spruce does.

 

But the other factor to consider is that because cedar is not as stiff as sitka if the guitar is built right it will either have a thicker top (say a .120 thickness as compared to .100 for a spruce top) or beefier bracing.

 

One of the reasons guitars from the 1930s are so well thought of is their old growth red spruce tops which were stiffer than either sitka or the secondary growth Adi used today. This allowed them to build guitars that were incredibly light. The light build produced some incredibly resonant guitars.

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Regardless of differences in the woods, the two guitars themselves are sufficiently different in shape/construction that even were they to be made of the same woods from the same tree - they'd still be quite different in sound.

 

The guys have characteristics down well enough, but the bottom line on a question like this is, IMHO, answerable only by playing the instruments using one's own technique to determine what may be a sound/feel one prefers - or likes enough to purchase.

 

With a lotta pickin' background a player likely will have a basic concept of what to expect, but even then, wood being wood, there will be instrument to instrument variations. Choice of string, technique - all that will play a major role in what someone might end up preferring.

 

Dunno if this comment helps you either - but besides the generalities of given types and materials, the string type and technique type will have a huge impact on any acoustic or AE guitar's tone.

 

The Masterbuilts are marvelous instruments, by the way. But... there's more than "quality" involved in tone.

 

m

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The really major difference for me is the nut width. The EF has a much wider nut so if you've got small hands it may be very uncomfortable to play. I have massive hands (6'4" 275lbs) and I own both a DR and an EF and I like the much wider nut of the EF a lot better.

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