Mr. Smith hisself appears on some YouTube videos outlining the concepts and ideas behind the construction of his acoustic line. He begins by saying that his shop has their collective hands on a Torres and has had the opportunity to x-ray it. They came to the conclusion that the soundbox was constructed more like a speaker cabinet and that the back and sides were ultimately as rigid as possible in order to reflect all of the sound back out, making the soundboard and strings act 'as one' to use his phrase, in order to produce an even powerful instrument with good base response. PRS feel that they have taken lessons from this and bucked the trend so to speak through their design process where they make the back and sides as rigid as possible, even using mahogany braces on the backplate. The neck contains one very substantial lump of graphite in place of a truss rod to mimic the steel reinforced necks of 'those early martins and other guitars so beloved to the keepers of the mojo' to paraphrase.
So my question to you is what do you think of all of this? Is all of this an avenue worth pursuing over and above producing a more stereotypical American style steel string guitar like those described in the pages of Cumpiano etc...?
Has anyone here tried one of these and do you believe tht there is a mojo in this non-standard construction techniques or are you experimenting in this manner yourself?
Discuss
