Engelman spruce
 

Does anyone have similar guitars, one with a sitka top, one with an engleman top, who could shed some real world light on why you would want one over the other? I guess engleman is not as bright? If that is the case, it was a good choice for my Pono parlor, which is plenty bright. I wouldn't want it any brighter. My only other rosewood/ spruce guitar is my M 36. The size difference makes any engleman/sitka comparisons ludicrous. Too many other variables.

I've played Martin dreads where the difference in adirondack and sitka could be compared, but can't recall the same situation with sitka and engelman.

My parlor does not have anything close to a cedar sound, and from all I've read, the engleman is said to fall between sitka and cedar. I don't hear that, but then I've never had a parlor before.

The parlor, by the way, is an addictive couch guitar. Probably the guitar I'd try to take on a plane too.

I would put it in this order from warmest and most complex to clear and powerful.
Cedar - Sitka Spruce - Engelmann Spruce - Alpine Spruce - Red Spruce
I have a Martin D-18 with an Engelmann top. It is very responsive, open, like you can expect from guitars older than it is.
.........Mike

okay just for fun,...
Cedar, Englemann, Redwood , Euro, South Alpine, Red, Sitka....
Just my ./02

Not to throw a wrench in things, but what the hay...

There is tremendous overlap in physical properties between the different species of spruce. How dense a top is, how stiff it is both with and across the grain and how it has been thicknessed for a given sized top will influence what you hear more than a "name ID" on a spruce set. As I said metaphorically in another recent thread; We tend to talk about "ingredients" (wood) and assume a resulting meal (sound) without considering the "chef" (builder) or their recipe (design/execution).

My $.02

Exactly.

I've got an Engelmann spruce top on my Larrivée OM-03W. It sounds like a spruce top. Beyond that I'm not sure I could characterize anything different about it that I can definitively attribute to the top being Engelmann instead of Sitka or European spruce.


Wade Hampton Miller

I shopped for a dread and was able to compare sitka, cedar, and Engelmann from one manufacturer that all had rosewood sides and back. I was looking for a guitar that allowed me to play Neil Young flatpick style with all the hard driving, palm muting, and top compresion AND do fingerstyle easily. Here's what I found: The cedar was great for fingerstyle, being very responsive to light right-hand work, but didn't compress with a darn when strummed hard. Instead it developed the jangly, non-harmonic sound of top overload. The sitka predictably compressed very nicely when strummed and was extremely hard to overdrive at all. On balance it was far less responsive at the lighter playing force and required a whole lot more of right-hand force that made it fatiguing to play fingerstyle on. And Engelmann? Engelmann is an amazing middle ground. It can handle light fingerstyle and still has the ability to compress on the upper end.

Frequency response? Cedar rounds out the sound because it has less response in the upper midrange. Nevertheless, it still reproduces the high end. In fact, the dreads I tried with cedar tops sounded a bit thin to me by virtue of the upper-mid carve out. Stika? It reproduces fairly flatly but has a stronger upper mid than the others and with a bold lower end. And Engelmann: It fits between sitka and cedar, with a a bit more refined high end than sitka that fits well with fingerstyle but with a strong bass as well.

I ended up with a rosewood bodied, Engelmann topped guitar that is typically called a canon by other players but still allows me to play light fingerstyle.

Bob

More often than not, you can expect a mellower, smoother sound from Engelmann than Sitka.

More often than not, you can expect a crispier, zingier sound from Sitka than Engelmann.

What Bob said: there's so much variation within any wood species, and so much overlap between them, that talking about 'the sound' of a particular species is not very productive, EXCEPT:

If you measure those wood properties you'll find that on the average there is some difference: Engelmann spruce does tend to be lower in density and less stiff along the grain (they go together) ON THE AVERAGE than other spruces. Roughly, from lowest to highest density the list would tend to be Western red cedar, Engelmann spruce, European spruce, redwood, Sitka spruce and Red spruce on the tops I've measured. Again, that's an AVERAGE: some of the densest and stiffest tops I'v gotten were Engelmann spruce, and some of the lightest were Red spruce.

Manufacturers work on the average. They allow for the variation by making the tops a bit thicker, and the braces a bit taller, than the average would require to guard against the chance of putting the weakest set of braces on the floppiest top and having it come back as a warranty repair. Still, given that their instruments are a notch lower in performance than those built by a good luthier because of the added 'beef', they do tend to reflect the 'average' properties of the wood species.

So; if you're talking about getting a luthier made instrument you'll be more likely to get the sound you want by specifying the sound, and letting the maker choose the wood regardless of species. If you're looking at production instruments then there might be something to the 'sound' of a particular species IF you're buying sight unseen. If you can play the instruments before you buy then you're likely to find examples you'll like in almost any top wood, but maybe a bit more likely if you go with the 'usual wisdom'.

This exactly!!

It regularly baffles me that people think cedar doesn't have "headroom".

If a guitar is built well, you should be able to strum it as hard as you bloody well want and not experience any "lack of headroom", no matter what species and color the wood is.

If a guitar is built poorly, it will likely exhibit some or many sonic deficiencies.

Just this week I played my first Evolution guitar in the same room as a Martin D-28, HD-28, and a L'Arrive parlour size (00 or triple-0 size) guitar. The Martins were "choice" guitars - really nice sounding Martins. I was expecting them to be closer in maximum volume to my Evo guitar. The smaller L'Arrive was louder and richer sounding than the Martins, and my Evolution design guitar (approximately 000 size) showed them all who was "boss" in terms of dynamic range (LOUD, but also delicate and responsive for finger-picking) and harmonic response (ie: rich and full harmonics). I mention this not to toot my horn on my own guitars; people who get the chance to play them know the truth. I mention this, however, to point out specifically that this goes against populist thinking that a deep sounding and loud guitar must be a large body guitar.

Misconceptions and preconceptions abound, and this is entirely true of top wood species for guitars. Better to define the sound wanted to a skilled builder, then get him/her to craft you a guitar that fits that description. Or, try out as many guitars as possible and get a short list, then narrow it down to your favorite.

So, don't stick to misconceptions, preconceptions and popular belief. McDonalds is surely very, VERY popular, but it doesn't mean it is good, nor does it mean it is actually "food".

If I recall Martin wanted to go with Engelmann after the supply of red spruce evaporated but could not find anybody sawing it. So obviously they thought highly of it.

The Engelmann is to me a mellower sound than Sitka or Adirondack. I have currently 3 acoustics (well, 4, but we are not talking carbon fiber here). The mellowest of the bunch is a Collings 0 with Engelmann top and rosewood back and sides. Perfect balance for finger style, which is most of what I do. It even works for classical stuff. I have a Bil Mitchell 00 that is Sitka/Mahogany and is a little brighter and drier sounding. I have a Martin 00-18 with Adirondack/Mahogany and it really sparkles, works well for strumming and finger style play, frankly. Of course you get all sort of variance with strings, and the result with flat picking could be way different, can't say because I don't do that.

Jon

My 812c has a Sitka top, my 912c is Engelmann. Here's what I discern from the 2 (FWIW, my 510c also has an Engelmann top).

Comparing the 2 grand concerts: Engelmann is "wetter" to my ears. I detect more overtones. Some people say this sounds more broken while others say it's brighter. Engelmann also has less headroom than Sitka. The 812c with the Sitka is also noticeably louder than the 912c.

My wife prefers the 912c because she says it reminds her of her classical guitar. And I agree. There is a delicate nature to the tone that is very similar to a nice classical. That said, the 812c is my main guitar...it's definitely my favorite.

Now the Engelmann on the 510c is a bit stiffer, and while still having more overtones (wetter) it is somewhere between the 812c & 912c. Which just highlights what is being said about each piece of wood being different. Couple that with the old quote "talking about sound is like dancing about architecture" and this is probably about as helpful as swapping out a recipe for a roadmap :D

I've owned two guitars with an Engelmann spruce top and they were so entirely different from one another, that they just go to show it's not a particular species on the top or back and sides that makes a guitar's tone, but the whole enchilada of guitar building and design.

So I'm not in the position to really judge. But one knowledgable dealer suggested Engelmann for a small bodied guitar. He believed it would be more responsive and yield more complexity. He was right in this instance. Yet another dealer suggested an extra thin Adirondack top for a similar guitar.

In my experience, 'headroom' is related to the weight of the top. Since stiffness along the grain in softwoods is directly proportional to density, a low density top will end up lighter in weight if you work it to the same stiffness along the grain. Cedar tends to (TENDS to!) have lower density than most of the spruces, so if you build to stiffness it might have a bit less headroom than, say a Red spruce top made the same way. OTOH, it's fairly easy to enhance headroom by the way you profile the braces and work with the bridge mass. This could be one reason why Red spruce and scalloped bracing and ebony bridges are all in the ingredients mix for Martin Dreads. The dense top wood and heavy bridge help coax some headroom out of a top that's flexible in the middle because of the brace profile. This would also help tame the 'wolf'. If headroom is an important thing to you, and you've just gotta have a cedar top, let your luthier know so they can compensate.

Agree with the above descriptions of englemans sound characteristics. My only disapointment was I dented it with slight pressure from my fingernail. Sitka is much more durable.