Showroom

In this section you can take a look at our digital warehouse of Italian Alpine Spruce soundboards. 

Simple! Add the tops you like to the wishlist and ask for a custom quotation. 

Shipping costs and wood health documents included. Customs fees and VAT excluded. MINIMUM ORDER 250€.

You can use filters to scout the right soundboard for your guitar! Just click the button to open the popup filter’s guide.

Filters' Guide

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Product Year: 2018

Density

Stiffness

SRC

Showing all 12 results

Filters' Guide

Here is a simple guide to help you understanding data we provide, and tips on how to use filters.

We classify soundboards into three categories based on aesthetic criteria:

  • Nix: extra clear and even soundboard
  • Ursa: bear claw soundboard
  • Aura: soundboard with typical brownish stripes of the Italian Alpine Spruce

Two photos for each soundboard will leave no doubts on its appearance: one in real colors and one in false colors to highlight bear claws or figures of the wood.

During the selection process we collect width, length and thickness for each soundboard and make those available to allow you to check how the instrument model will fit the wood plate.

For simplicity we also classify soundboards into three categories based on the single plate width:

  • Small: single plate width between 19-21cm
  • Medium: single plate width between 21-22cm
  • Large: single plate width over 22cm

Density is an important parameter and it is related to how easy a material is to accelerate. It is widely used by luthiers for selecting and comparing soundboards.

Stiffness indicates how easy a material is to bend and it is a very relevant parameter for an instrument soundboard that has to vibrate as well as to withstand the tension load of the strings. It also has a relevant role in the determination of the final thickness of the soundboard.

Regarding the importance of density and stiffness for soundboards, there is an interesting paper from Pacific Rim Tonewoods entitled “Perceptual evaluation of bracewood and soundboard wood variations on the preference of a steel-string acoustic guitar”. The conclusion of the article is that “the guitars with a low longitudinal Young’s modulus and a low (or median) density were significantly preferred over guitars with a high longitudinal Young’s modulus and a high density of the top wood”.

Our spruce is less dense and less stiff than the one presented in the paper.

Sound Radiation Coefficient (SRC) gives the idea of how much the vibration of the soundboard is converted into sound radiation.

Here is a more detailed description by Trevor Gore in the paper “Wood for Guitars” Published by the Acoustical Society of America in 2011: “A wood’s sound radiation coefficient provides a guide to the species to select for a soundboard. The sound radiation coefficient (sometimes called radiation ratio) combines factors indicating how easy a material is to bend (Young’s modulus) with factors indicating how easy it is to accelerate (density) and so gives a measure of the acoustical power that can be produced by a driven vibrating plate before damping losses are taken into account.”

We select soundboards with a SRC above the average european spruce SRC value, that is 12 [m^4/(kg s)] according to Trevor Gore’s scientific papers. The higher the louder!

Through close collaboration with Chris Jenkins, we have identified a stiffness threshold value that discriminates between lower stiffness soundboards suitable for high responsive fingerstyle guitars and higher stiffness soundboards suitable for large size flatpicking/strumming guitars.

You can use the Style filter to simplify your search.

The year is an information provided by our wood supplier that identifies when the log has been processed and transformed into bookmatched mirrored plates.

In the showroom we have also provided you with the comparison tool to make even easier and more effective your search experience.