"$225,000 range. Bosendorfers up to $500,000 depending on finish. Unique instruments can go for over $1M on auction."
Wow, this is crazy...like $791,500 is crazy for Eric Clapton’s acoustic guitar. It is mostly the name (the brand) that you are paying (in these extreme prices of course). So, even-though the prices are exaggerated, at the classical guitar the price matters. "Luckily", I am talking here about the guitars range $5000 to $18,000. Usually (but that’s not the rule), the higher the price, the better the guitar. It depends of course on what are you looking for.
This brings us to what fro has mentioned “ Top players often go to the manufacturer (by invitation) and try many instruments in order to find THE ONE for he/she”.
Can’t be truer, imho, any instrument just does not fit to anyone. The best guitar is actually THE ONE that suit You the most. In size, in sound, in playability, how it resonates, etc…
I will try to be as short as possible. The used material and the construction of the guitar is where the guitars mostly differ (from the same producer). The top of the guitar usually comes in cedar (produces darker, warmer, "full" sound which I prefer) or spruce (produces sharper, brighter and more clear, joyful sound).
In the guitar construction it’s the bracing system that matters. It is the name given to the wooden structure that is placed under the soundboard (inside the guitar) which purpose is to reinforce it. Bracing system is very complex and it goes beyond the role of just a pure structural support. Thanks to different bracing (there are many types), the guitar will respond in different ways and will produce different sound. Bracing actually influences/controls the vibration of the strings.
Why the guitar needs reinforcements of these kind at all? Well, guitar top’s differ not just in material but also in the thickness of the top. When the top is made so thin that is on the edge of the collapse, with just enough bracing (reinforcement) to keep it from breaking, they say that the sound is in this case the best one. Wouldn’t know that but lighter guitars do sound to me nicer because the thinner top transmits the sound of the strings in more powerful way into soundboard vibration and you get a guitar with bigger volume, and faster string response. I see this as if the communication between the vital parts is going smoothly. Meaning, the guitar will respond well to both, the aggressive and the gentle right hand techniques.
This soundboard vibration and how the guitar resonates is how the guitar gets it’s character. There are, I would like to call them “working horse” guitars and guitars with character. The first ones will do the work well but will not impress you (no charm there), the second one will move you in many ways (as written above, in sound, in playability). Astonishing difference.
There are more things that also differ on the guitar: the string height (action), the thickness of the neck (can surprisingly influence on left hand positioning), the position/location of “wolf notes” (some notes are a bit louder, more clear and better defined. Some not - “wolf notes”), etc, etc, there are much more to say…
Also, since the material is wood, the wood is alive and reacts on weather conditions (humidity) and can sound surprisingly different in different weather conditions. The age of the material (wood) also differs and affects the sound.
So, although the guitar might look simple, it is actually a complex instrument. Especially if you are looking for the good guitar, there are plenty of facts on which you have to pay your attention on. And the conclusion is, due to all the things that are written above, even the same type of the guitar, from the same producer (especially if it’s hand-made), does not have to sound necessarily the same.
