In article ,
"Henry Kolesnik" wrote:

Amy, Bob, Richard
Thanks for your response and interest. I'm retired used to be an
engineer
before management laid waste to that. I've started taking weekly guitar
lessons over a year ago and slowly getting a bit better. It's a hell
of a challenge at 66. I want
to buy a better guitar and all guitars don't sound the same, even the
same model. One shouldn't expect them to because they're all made from
different cuts of wood and assembled by human hands. What amazed me is
that the materials used for the nut, neck, saddle and bridge as well as
the mfg and age of the strings have a noticeable effect on the sound.
The bridge pins, angle of the strings out of the bridge pin holes and
tuners also have effects.
In the last year I found at least four guitars that I really liked, 3
used ones and a new one all over a $1000.00 but I passed because I'm not
that impulsive or flush with cash. A good player can make just about
any guitar sound good, or a hell of a lot better than me.
I'm into ham radio also and last year at hamfest I traded for an HP
3582A spectrum analyzer but the learning curve is a bit steep for me.
So unless I can find an experienced user or devote much more time to it
I'm going to have to trade it.
Last week I won an HP 3561A on ePay but it has a problem that I hope I
can fix. In the meantime I thought it might make sense to scope out
sound cards and related software. I know a lot of hams use sound cards
for various & different applications and it's about time I took a wack
at one and what better way than trying to figure out what it is that
makes one guitar sound so much better than another. Or if changing the
nut, saddle or bridge pins really improves the sound or is it just
wishful thinking.

What a neat project!

I can tell you, based on years of experience with changing out the parts
that you mentioned (nut, saddle, bridge, pins, ESPECIALLY break angle)
that these things DO make a difference in the sound. I have NOT heard a
difference with changes of neck or tuners (certainly these things affect
the intonation of the instrument, but I've never known then to change
the quality of sound).

However, the choice of wood, body shape, and top bracing are far more
relevant. You might want to check with Martin, Taylor, Larrivee, et al
to see if they have any scientific info that can help you. They aren't
in the business of pushing pins, tuners, etc.

Good luck and please post what you find out!

(Since this is RAO, I should point out that my hearing of the things
mentioned in my second paragraph above is based on differences heard
based on changes made to the instruments when it wasn't possible to know
about the changes.)