Cleaning affects sound?

[streamlights]

Does a clean acoustic sound different, maybe better?

 

I've done A/B tests with mine only guitar,

 

but what about your own experiences?

 

Thanks for your input on this!

[capmaster]

A certain amount of dust won't make an audible difference, but smudge is bad. Any stuff with significant fluid behaviour may cause severe dampening. Rain falling on a guitar top will nearly mute the instrument very fast.

 

In 1987 I played acoustic guitar and upright bass on river rafts. On rainy days there usually was a tent roof above the stage, but sometimes it started to rain all of a sudden with the stage unprotected. The dampening effect of water drops on the instrument tops left subtle attack sounds only after just a short period. There was no tone at all although the strings clearly vibrated. Only a small fraction of the instrument top surfaces was covered with water, but it was sufficient to kill tone completely.

 

By the way, the wet drum heads and cymbals were rather quiet, too.