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I'm definitely not trying to be argumentative but was just thinking this over last night and if you are open to the conversation, for the purposes of discussion, I think there are good reasons why the total weight of an instrument isn't a good metric for sound quality or production.
Ultimately, in my understanding at least, the volume and sound of an instrument come largely from a small set of characteristics of the instrument. In order of importance, the monopole (bridge) area of the soundboard and braces, the bridge itself, the back (significantly less importance), the sides (approaching zero except in their relationship to controlling top vibration). The total mass and the neck does affect that whole thing to a degree (when I take my necks off my guitars, the air resonance and soundboard monopole decrease significantly, but the construction of the soundboard remains the significant factor there (also I'm not sure how my body construction and neck block relate to traditional guitars).
Anyway, point being: the things that affect the sound of instrument are almost exclusively low mass objects (soundboard and bracing are spruce, bridge is like 20g, etc). The neck, blocks, metal tailpiece, frets, etc are all likely much heavier than the sound producing parts of the guitar. So the total mass is going to be affected more by things that are not really involved in the sound production.
A for instance, I think the Selmers have relatively small neck blocks. But you could probably put a large block in there and have a similar sounding guitar. On the other hand, the few French guitars I've had which were trade quality were super lightly built EXCEPT for the top, which was thick AF. One of these guitars would basically levitate. It had almost no neck block. But the top was thick. It didn't make a huge difference in the weight of the guitar, and it sounded fine, but it was definitely not amazing. Point being you can +or - the top thickness significantly without affecting the overall mass of the instrument.
Giuliano has this measurement (it might come from Gore) called "equivalent mass" which is a calculation of the effective weight of the monopole of the guitar. Basically some witchcraft calculation of the specific mass of only the vibrating area of the monopole of the guitar. It's taken me a long time to understand that this is probably one of the chief factors in how a guitar sounds because it largely isolates the fundamental part of the sound production.
Anyway, like I said, I'm very much developing my understanding of all of this, so quite likely I'm totally wrong. I was laying in bed thinking about this last night...what a weird way to go to sleep.
Just curious @paulmcevoy75, are you able to keep the assembled "ring modes" of the top and back separate, to avoid a "wolf" note, but maybe within reach of each other to enable a "coupling" that may broaden out the overall response?
No tbh I haven't gotten there yet. That's something Giuliano talks about a lot. Maybe I have been lucky but I haven't found my instruments to be particularly wolfy so far, or maybe I'm not sensitive to it. I have an archtop that is well mannered generally but goes absolutely mental on a G note with an amplifier. I should test it out sometime with the hammer.
Are you?
I should say that my back and top modes are separate, I think by luck/nature of how I've ended up building them. More of the issue I think is keeping each individual resonance off of a scale tone at 440.
“the total weight of an instrument isn't a good metric for sound quality or production”
I used to not-care about total weight much or at all, but, most of the high-skill players I engage with seem to immediately dig a light “jumpy” acoustic guitar, so that’s primarily why I strive for lighter (and jumpier, both with mixed success). I can play ok-ish but I can’t really self-QC or evaluate past a certain early point so I primarily rely on expert player eviscerative feedback and try to increment toward what they say they like and don’t like. Got no links or math (other than!: the most expensive GJ guitars fs on this site also tend to be the lightest in weight 🤷♂️).
I cannot speak to anything related to build techniques or anything like that, but when I played the natural finish one Paul sold recently that I got to play over the summer, what I most appreciated beyond that the guitar really was built fantastically, is that while it had the Selmer thing going on, it wasn't just that. I liked that guitar enough that I really wish I had the money laying around for it because I think it was a guitar I would enjoy for the rest of my playing days.
Thanks man. The check is in the mail.
Like I told you in person, if I didn't already have a deposit in with Jerome Duffell again, I would have been hard pressed to let you leave with that guitar, even if the dots were in the wrong place 😂
Lovely to be able to afford more than one high-end GJ guitar!
My dots are in the freedom position.
That definitely didn't go off well in Paris....
Thanks for the kind words man.