Monday, June 13, 2016

Tone wood: The oval hole versus f hole archtops


The oval hole versus f hole archtops 


Since about 1935 Gibson started to change the design of a few archtops models from round or oval sound hole to f holes. 



F holes, that is what the buyer would have. Because the high end archtop guitars and the famous players used f hole archtops. 


Maybe more important is the cutting power and punchy tone of the f hole archtop which makes it easy to be heard in an acoustical setting. 


The picture shows a prewar Gibson L50 from 1935, one of the first L50’s with f holes instead of the round sound hole.