V-bracing

Here is another blog on a dangerous subject: the new V-bracing on Taylor Guitars. A while ago had a long discussion on the Acoustic Guitar Forum, after Andy Powers, the Chief Designer of Taylor Guitars, explained how V-bracing improves intonation of acoustic guitars.

Although V-bracing is often thought to be a Taylor invention, the essentials were already designed in 2012 by a Belgian luthier. This drawing was published on a Dutch guitar forum. 

It became a very long thread, with a lot of useless posts and trolling by some, but also valuable contributions by others from which I learned a lot. The thread has now come to an end, and I will summarise my findings here, I realise that I have to do that very carefully, because in the last few weeks I was banned from the Acoustic Guitar Forum twice, because of what the moderators thought was brand bashing, An unjustified accusation, in my opinion, because my language was always civilised and I always provided carefully phrased rationales to explain my conclusions. However, I also know that the Acoustic Guitar Forum once started as the Taylor Guitar Forum, so every remark against the Taylor brand might easily get some of the moderators nervous. Anyway, here are my conclusions about Taylor's V-bracing.

Taylor's claim that V-bracing increases both volume and sustain of an acoustic guitar is remarkable, and I am pretty sure it is not true. If this claim were true, it would mean that either the Law of Conservation of Energy would be violated, or that all guitars constructed without V-bracing dissipate much more of the strings energy into heat. Both options make little sense. For such a bold claim you would expect Taylor to provide an extensive collection of proof points (that is: results of carefully executed measurements) but they only provided personal opinions by Taylor folks and players. When I performed a simple test to measure the sustain of V-bracing, I found that the sustain of a V-braced Taylor was actually a little shorter than the sustain of an almost identical Taylor, only with traditional bracing. Bye-bye sustain claim. Is that a problem? That's a whole different question. I don't think so. 

Taylor's claim that V-bracing can improve the intonation of an acoustic guitar may be correct, at least in theory. But after reading the email from Andy Power to the Acoustic Guitar Forum, in which he explained how this all works, I wonder if he understands the physics behind it. Intonation problems caused by acoustic guitar bracing, if they can be heard at all, are only present on very lightly built guitars with nylon strings. And even then an intonation problem would occur only on 2 or 3 unique positions (i.e, one string on one fret) somewhere on the fret board, and only for a very short time, that is, the length of the sound you hear when you knock om your guitar . As a result, the commercial video clips of people playing chords high up the neck, claiming in utter astonishment that it all sounds so much better in tune, have no meaning. The whole intonation issue simply does not work that way. Any improvement these people hear originates only from somewhere between their ears, certainly not from V-bracing. Moreover, it is more than likely that this intonation issue does not even occur on steel string guitars, because of the high tension of steel strings and consequently a relatively heavy structure of the guitar's sound board and bracing.

In addition, it must be noted that any experienced guitarist will continuously 'play' with the intonation, by bending or pushing the strings. This affects intonation much more than any bracing pattern could ever do. Moreover, the equal temperament tuning of an acoustic guitar is a much larger source of error in terms of intonation than a single note sounding a little sharp or flat.

To make a long story even longer: more sustain with more volume I believe is a nonsensical claim, and as far as intonation is concerned I think V-bracing offers a solution that does not work for a problem that does not exist. This does not mean that the V-braced Taylors are great guitars, like so many other Taylors. They will sound different than the X-braced Taylors, and if you can afford them, there is no reason not to buy one.