[jtkung]

Here is Paul Reed Smith -- doubling down on electric guitar components which he says make a sonic difference, but is complete nonsense. Lighter mass plastic tuner buttons as opposed to metal or wood make a difference in tone?  Crazy.  Also, no locking tuners on non-trem guitars.  Locking tuners are great for ALL guitars for convenience.  My guess is that he's trying to save more money, higher profit margins by consolidating components and having fewer options. Notice now he snuck that news in there as secondary to the tuner button nonsense. 

So you can see -- if he starts talking like this, how can you believe him on his tonewood argument?  It's a conflict of interest since he also SELLS high-end woods in his Private Stock, so of course he has to push this concept.



Here's the nonsense at 00:54.  He talks about putting a rubber nut and bridge on the guitar and that robs the guitar of high end. Of course due to damping.  The nut and bridge are usually higher mass, dense materials which don't dampen string vibrations and are the only elements which have DIRECT contact with the strings.  He then equates this logic to having too much mass on the headstock which asymmetrically weights the neck and is not musical --  robs the guitar of midrange. Hence the need for lower mass tuner buttons made of plastic! This is utter nonsense.

With this logic, what about the metal tuners which are much heavier? Also, if the mass of the headstock is bad, then headless guitars should be even better since there's no headstock, no tuners or buttons!

How can anybody believe this shit?

[jtkung]

Here's a good article on one luthier who thinks PRS's argument on tonewood is nonsense:
https://guitar.com/news/music-news/luthi...d-defence/
Here's an excerpt:

The importance of the wood used in a guitar’s construction is a hot topic at the moment – so much so that no less than Paul Reed Smith recently leapt to the defence of the impact wood has on making the best electric guitars.

However, Smith’s view isn’t a universally held one – and now boutique luthier James Sturner has fired back at the PRS founder’s column, describing the entire debate around tonewood as, “dumb”

Last week, in a new column for Premier Guitar, Reed Smith shared his thoughts on how tonewood deniers on the internet couldn’t be more mistaken.

“Bottom line, to throw away one of the main ingredients for making instruments because the internet says ‘it doesn’t make any difference’ is, to me, like saying dead strings, rubber bridges, soft finishes, and wet woods make no difference. With all due respect, I don’t buy it.”

But now Sturner, who runs Sturner Guitars, has added an unequivocal counterpoint in a video posted to the brand’s Instagram page, declaring, “This is a dumb debate to be having.”

“Obviously when building guitars, wood – and what wood you select – will have some kind of impact,” Sturmer insists. “But this is such a small part of the equation.”

He goes on to praise PRS guitars, but points out that their quality isn’t really down to what they’re made of, “What makes PRS guitars good is not so much the materials they are using as is the people who are actually making those guitars,” he insists.

For Sturner, “the secret sauce is skilled labour. It’s not some special material. So in my opinion the whole tonewood debate is really just marketing and if you’re not able to see that then you probably have more money than sense.”

The luthier certainly isn’t alone in his thoughts. Even Leo Fender himself wasn’t a believer in the differences between tonewoods. Virtuoso Matteo Mancuso also previously argued that “you don’t need to spend a lot of time finding the right wood for the fretboard or the right pickup combination.”

[jtkung]

Oh and I guess Leo Fender was a tonewood denier (as PRS calls them) also?
https://www.guitarworld.com/news/leo-fen...d-thoughts

"He preferred what was readily available – and affordable. And when he measured responses, he didn’t really see differences between woods”: Leo Fender didn’t think tonewoods made much difference to solidbody guitar tone..."