drewfx1
WARNING! Physics content:
The speed of sound in wood is ~10 greater than air.
Since Hz = cycles/sec and speed is ft/sec, we can get the wavelength of a frequency by dividing speed by Hz to get ft/cycle.
What you will find is that the wavelengths are 10 times longer, and at 2,000 Hz you get a wavelength in wood of ~6.5ft or 2m (and longer at lower frequencies).
So if we are talking about reflections against the edge of the body bouncing back and causing phase reinforcement or cancellation with the strings, how much difference in phase is a body with slightly different dimensions going to make? And keep in mind that the longer the wave travels, its amplitude is going to be reduced, especially at higher frequencies (with shorter wavelengths).
Again, the idea that something might make a difference does not mean that it automatically makes a meaningful difference
Well I do unfortunately struggle with hard science concepts and truisms because unfortunately I am a woefully undereducated individual (sorry... dropout. Working on it I swear) BUT are these equations actually factoring in everything? I mean are we basing this on the sound vibrating through a piece of 1"x 2" piece of wood by some cold metallic sciency vibrating whatchamacallit inserted to both ends or the vibrations of a string attached to two screws plunged directly to the plank? Or is the experiment based on all the complex materials and dispersion of vibrations (at all the varying frequencies of all strings fretted in all combinations) through said materials and how they interact with the electronics? Are all those complex reactions negated as soon as they touch the wood or do they factor in?
We have bone or plastic at the nut dispersing energy through the neck which may or may not be attached to the body with a bolt on plate or glued right in etc.. We have multiple contact points on the bridge vibrating through various means to the body depending on style sending the vibrations out into the wood in various ways/directions. We have the bridge close to the pickups, which if the pickup is indeed sensitive to signal other than metallic strings vibrating, could pick up differences based on how the wood is reacting due to dispersion (and obviously the more sensitive the pickup the more apparent this becomes). The vibrations could be bouncing back and forth within the would based on how they are dispersed and reacting to each other or cancelling each other out. Etc, etc...
Well you get the point. It seems that there are all sorts of contact points for the string vibrations to travel through the wood that could be sent into all sorts of directions. If they don't get terminated before they reach those destinations, even if they get deadened, they could get sent back to the bridge to alter the vibration of the strings or even interfere with the pickups.
So the vibrations (or some of them) going down the forks of a V may travel to the end of those forks stop dead at the end stopping that resonance from reaching the strings or pickup again whereas another style body would keep those vibrations closer to home and effect the strings/pickup more.
IDK. A much more obvious example of vibrations through a guitar body is what I just did to my acoustic. I had covered the thing with all sorts of crazy stickers. It really deadened the sound and that was kind of the intent. It was an ultra bright guitar that didn't sound good through the PA so I did not like it for my live stuff. I wanted it to be meatier so I just kept adding stickers to it and it did indeed dull the tone. Well now that I don't play live anymore and need to use it in the studio where I can do whatever I want to it in post I wanted to get as bright a signal as I could to work with my rather crappy/dark mics. I spent almost two days removing a couple dozen stickers of it and polishing the thing and now it is CRAZY bright. I forget how bright it was.
Obviously an acoustic relies on the soundboard vibrating but I think the tone of an electric does depend on how it is allowed to vibrate.
To me though... I feel it. I hear it.
I put my faith in science and I believe in the scientific method for measuring our world but there are times when it simply conflicts with what I myself have experienced first hand. In those situations I generally assume that science has simply not received the appropriate data to solve those conflicts or that my own neurology has skewed the input making me come to faulty conclusions (bias/mental disorder/chemical shenanigans). Considering that the vibrations within a guitar are an extraordinarily complex mish mash of wacky it might be the type of thing even a high powered computer couldn't model. I mean we are just getting amp sims down and they still can't really match the real thing in many ways.
Either way I think what would be required to confirm this would be a controlled scientific study done using different body shapes (which may have been done already and I would be curious to see the results of such a study). Until then I'm stuck with my own human bias and quirks... which is okay I guess. I just wish I were smarter.
Makes for interesting CH banter though.