Question: I have a few questions regarding the laminate rosewood on the back and sides of my 210e. What exactly is the difference between it and “non-laminate” rosewood? Also, I’ve read that I can actually expect my guitar to lose its tone over the years because of the laminate body. Will it lose tone, maintain its tone, or sound better as it ages?
Thomas Nichols
Austin, Texas

Answer: It’ll sound better as it ages; it doesn’t matter what anyone says. The top isn’t laminated, and it ages. An all-solid guitar will age better because of the backs and sides aging, but your guitar will improve. It won’t lose sound — you can scratch that off your list of worries and start worrying about your sugar intake or something. Your veneered back and sides have three layers of wood with glue between them. The outside layer is rosewood, and the inside layers are less valuable. They are strong and make a good guitar, but they can’t produce the complexity of tone that you hear in a solid wood guitar. The solid wood guitar is a piece of rosewood all the way through.