Solid body ukes versus laminate ukes? Laminates shown to be better !

Be that as it may (and that is a guitar test, not ukulele), with my ukes, my Uku acacia koa laminate sounds better than the Lanikai solid spruce/quilted ash and Gretsch solid mahogany, the solid spruce/curly maple mandolele not as good as the others, but the Kala solid cedar/acacia koa has the best sound, and strings have a lot to do with it, so I say forget the tests and just go by your ear.
 
The following tests appear to show that laminate guitars outperform solid bodied guitars by a considerable margin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw1iUqSSeqU

I've heard plenty of great laminates. I've listened to and indulged in all the back and forth on this issue but in my right mind I know that what counts is how well you can play the instrument. There is very little difference IMO between a good solid and a good laminate. There is a world of difference between a great uke player and a beginner.

For a long time I've believed bias and a sort of placebo effect is at work on most of these kinds of issues. Robert Anton Wilson nailed it when he said "What the thinker thinks, the prover proves".
 
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Smoke and mirrors

The "tests" as demonstrated on the video, with a person holding the tuning fork in their hand, simply demonstrates how easy it is to produce a set of figures that "look good" without actually proving anything.
Demonstrate an unstrung guitar, not with the strings "muffled", "detuned" or "dampened", and with the tuning fork held in a freely hinged bracket, so EXACTLY the same downward force is applied to the saddle by the fork ... then energise the fork in EXACTLY the same manner, not just by flicking it with a fingernail, and you'll have some comparable results. What these results "prove" will be open to interpretation, but at least they'll be a reasonably direct comparison ... until then, just smoke and mirrors!!
 
I've heard plenty of great laminates. I've listened to and indulged in all the back and forth on this issue but in my right mind I know that what counts is how well you can play the instrument. There is very little difference IMO between a good solid and a good laminate. There is a world of difference between a great uke player and a beginner.

For a long time I've believed bias and a sort of placebo effect is at work on most of these kinds of issues. Robert Anton Wilson nailed it when he said "What the thinker thinks, the prover proves".
YUP.
My laminate tenor miraculously seems to be "opening up" at the same rate my skill and sound sensitivity increases.
 
Tis was an interesting test, but flawed. How long the strings ring does not represent the actual sound quality of the instrument. In particular, I noted that the solid top started out louder, but decayed faster. This indicates that it would probably reflect more suttlties in the sound immediately after plucking the string. This would better show the details that really tell our ears how good something sounds.

Efficiency is not everyting. I guess a comparable analogy would be, Ethel Merman had bigger tits than Farah Fawcett. Who would you rather sleep with?
 
AS has been often said here, you must make sure you compare apples to apples. There are many high quality laminates that sound better than their lower quality counterparts. This test reminds me of the hearing test I got. They put the earphones on and pumped the sounds directly at my eardrums and said my hearing isn't all that bad. Well guess what, take off the headphones and make sounds several feet away from me. I am about 70% deaf in my left ear due to congestion (got worse after my last head cold) and about 30% in my right ear at the functional level.....as in the "real world". So much for the machine. I've never met anyone who things a laminated anything sounds as good as better quality, all solid models from one of the "K" makers, most custom makers, etc. etc.
 
The "tests" as demonstrated on the video, with a person holding the tuning fork in their hand, simply demonstrates how easy it is to produce a set of figures that "look good" without actually proving anything.
Demonstrate an unstrung guitar, not with the strings "muffled", "detuned" or "dampened", and with the tuning fork held in a freely hinged bracket, so EXACTLY the same downward force is applied to the saddle by the fork ... then energise the fork in EXACTLY the same manner, not just by flicking it with a fingernail, and you'll have some comparable results. What these results "prove" will be open to interpretation, but at least they'll be a reasonably direct comparison ... until then, just smoke and mirrors!!

EXACTLY! That's the least scientific test I've seen done since watching "Sharknado" on the Sci-Fi channel.

Laminate B&S guitars with double tops/nomex tops are making their way into the hands of several pro classical guitarists, but that's solely for volume. John Williams used to play a Fleta guitar, and now plays a laminated Greg Smallman. The tonal difference was a disappointment to many Williams fans, and it can be clearly heard on his recordings. A Smallman guitar runs about $30,000, so..... :eek:
 
FYI...solid body and solid top/back/sides are two different things...
 
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Tis was an interesting test, but flawed. How long the strings ring does not represent the actual sound quality of the instrument. ...

:agree: This exactly. On an acoustic instrument how the soundboard / sound box respond to the vibrating string matters more than how long the string vibrates. On an electric instrument how long the string vibrates becomes more meaningful.

There are so many silly tests "proving" this or that on the internet these days and most of them make anyone with even a good high-school science education laugh.

That said, in acoustic instruments the design and construction have more bearing on the performance of the instrument than does the material. Theoretically it should be possible to make acoustic instruments out of laminated materials that kick butt on even the best solid-wood instruments - but of course to reach that goal you would be using materials and construction techniques that would make the result more expensive than a solid wood instrument. In almost all cases when you see laminated materials used in production instruments it wasn't done to improve performance but to save money...and the results show that.

John
 
Myth? What myth? There are so many things wrong with this useless test its not worth taking the time to go through it all, but to just list a few, the two guitars are different body sizes, no mention of possible loose bracing, on and on. So, if you plan to play your guitar by tapping a tuning fork on the bridge, then by all means go for the cheap laminate, at least they are good for something. I'll take the 60's Martin.

Oh, and by the way, you can place a tuning fork on a soild piece of a wood block and do the same test and as long as the block is dry, it will sustain as long as the tuning fork arms are moving.
 
EXACTLY! That's the least scientific test I've seen done since watching "Sharknado" on the Sci-Fi channel.

Alright, now you've gone too far! Nobody disses "Sharknado" on my watch. Some people should not be allowed to watch art unfolding on the big screen.
 
Myth? What myth? There are so many things wrong with this useless test its not worth taking the time to go through it all, but to just list a few, the two guitars are different body sizes, no mention of possible loose bracing, on and on. So, if you plan to play your guitar by tapping a tuning fork on the bridge, then by all means go for the cheap laminate, at least they are good for something. I'll take the 60's Martin.

Oh, and by the way, you can place a tuning fork on a soild piece of a wood block and do the same test and as long as the block is dry, it will sustain as long as the tuning fork arms are moving.


You sound like you know what you're talking about but no one said anything about "cheap" laminate. If by that you mean all laminate then I'm guessing you're wrong about that.
 
You sound like you know what you're talking about but no one said anything about "cheap" laminate. If by that you mean all laminate then I'm guessing you're wrong about that.

In my experience in repairing and working on guitars and ukes over the past 20 years, most, if not all laminate instruments are in the cheaper range of the spectrum. If you are paying a lot of $$ for a laminate guitar or uke, well that's your business. Seeing how instruments are put together these days, especially the imports, I would not advise anybody to purchase them beyond a certain dollar amount. That is my take on the industry and if you don't agree, I have no problem with that, and I am not guessing about anything.
 
Exactly. And in this test, it appears he is comparing a laminate-top steel string to a solid-top classical which uses nylon strings. Two completely different things.

Actually, that Martin is a smaller body steel string guitar, not a classical.
 
In my experience in repairing and working on guitars and ukes over the past 20 years, most, if not all laminate instruments are in the cheaper range of the spectrum. If you are paying a lot of $$ for a laminate guitar or uke, well that's your business. Seeing how instruments are put together these days, especially the imports, I would not advise anybody to purchase them beyond a certain dollar amount. That is my take on the industry and if you don't agree, I have no problem with that, and I am not guessing about anything.

"at least they are good for something".

I based my response on the above comment from you. I have owned a solid Pono and a less expensive laminate. The difference was not tremendous. If you think laminates are only good to use tuning forks on then that's your business of course but a lot of folk here including me don't agree. I'm very happy with some laminates I own. If I play well they sound good. My Fluke is a very good example.
 
From my humble point of view...:eek: This is unbalance view to only trust on this kind of test.

Music is in the art world. Pure sound wave/energy is in the science world. A hand built Ukulele is a combination of both. We can either see it as a beautiful musical instrument (Art) or a physical tool to produce sound (Science). There is no measurement standards in the art world. One tool that produce a perfect soundwave spectrum, may not necessarily sound perfect to my ear. Because as an organic human, I have no perfect eardrum like machines. On the other side, a well built ukulele that found balance between both worlds, may produce a ugly soundwave spectrum but sounds beautifully to me.
 
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