Adirondack Spruce
Adirondack Spruce is an iconic wood heralded as a foremost among top woods. It has more overall resonance than Sitka, loud and powerful with a focused punchy bass.
The Materials
Tonewoods — Soundboards
More than any other wood, I choose a top by feel and ear: tapping for a clear, sustaining ring, flexing for the right balance of stiffness and lightness, and reading the grain for stability. I handpick those with high stiffness-to-weight ratio, quartersawn and seasoned until it is dead stable. Each top is then voiced by hand — thinned and braced to its own strength rather than to a number.
The spruces, cedars and rarer tops come from specialist cutters I have worked with for years, chosen for wood that is responsibly and legally sourced — from Adirondack and Swiss spruce to Sinker Cedar and Redwood recovered from riverbeds.
View Available Pieces
German Spruce
Known for its creamy white appearance, German Spruce possesses almost the same tonal characteristics as Adirondack; clear, focused, tight bass response but less bright.
Sitka Spruce
Probably the hardest of the woods used in the manufacture of soundboards, Sitka Spruce produces a loud and bright tone, accentuating the basses and trebles – qualities that made it a popular choice.
Swiss Spruce
Aside from its beautiful creamy appearance, Swiss Spruce is highly regarded for its responsiveness and rich tone, with very focused low ends and very refined clear trebles.
Engelmann Spruce
A lighter colored wood than Sitka Spruce, Engelmann Spruce shares the same tonal characteristics as a Sitka only with richer overtones and more focused mids.
Lijiang Spruce
Used for centuries in traditional Chinese instruments, Lijiang grow slowly near the Tibetan Plateau. Featuring very tight grains, it has a Lucchi speed that exceeds 6000 m/s – highly responsive making it ideal as tops.
Sinker Redwood
Taken from reclaimed old-growth redwood logs, Sinker Redwood display a rich spectrum of variegation. Its age translates into a nice cross-grain stiffness giving it a bold response and brilliance with warm overtones.
Western Red Cedar
Western Red Cedar is a soft wood which produces a warm, mellow, ‘earthy’ tone. Used for many years for classical guitar soundboards but has recently become popular with steel strings players.
Double Top
A soundboard made from two tops with Nomex Honeycomb at its core, is known for its lightness and strength; a very responsive top with enhanced sustain, projection, and clarity.
Red Himalayan Hemlock
Extremely rare and found only in the Himalayas, these slow growing trees yield grain and color similar to cedar but are 10% stiffer than Sitka. One can only imagine the headroom it gives especially when strummed.
Port Orford Cedar
Rarely seen in standard builds, Port Orford Cedar is highly sought after for its bold, robust, and responsive tone, making it an excellent choice for both nylon and steel stringed instruments.
Ancient Dark Cypress
From an old growth forest that have been gone for over 100 years, this sinker wood has the qualities of Englemann with the punch of Sitka. The increased density boosts the bass & sustain while reducing the attack speed.
Torrefied
A wood that was subjected to a thermo-curing process to replicate the cellular structure of an old wood, increasing its resonance and responsiveness while making it more resistant to swelling and shrinking.
Khaya Mahogany
Khaya Mahogany is a hard, bright sounding wood with focused mids. With its wide dynamic range, it responds very well to both sensitive playing and louder, percussive styles.
Pacific Koa
Koa is a beautiful figured wood, dark brown in appearance with blonde streaks. Tonally, it combines the clarity of a maple with rosewood-like qualities and the sensitivity of mahogany.
Choco Mango
Expressive and gorgeous, Mango presents a perfectly balanced tone with a warmth close to a koa matched with very focused mids and highs.