The enlarged soundhole is an outgrowth of Clarence White's vintage D-28. The real story behind it is as follows. His very fine sounding Martin D-28 had been beaten to near death by a series of hard playing owners who used heavy strings and big, sharp flat picks. One of the consequences of the gorillas with picks was major wearing out of the soundhole edge (a laWilly Nelson top excavation moved slightly to the northwest). (The guitar also had a neck replacement, but that is another story.)

To clean up the resulting mess rather than repair the wear holes, it was decided to take a pen knife (the tool of choice at the time...remember these were the dark ages of guitar repair) and cut away all of the top to the edge of the middle rings of purfling, opening up the soundhole by about 1/2 inch. In typical good old boy, redneck reasoning a "bigger hole lets more sound out", sort of thing. (It's as if, the thinking went, sound were some wirey, fur covered swamp animal just hunkering to get out of this teeny tiny hole and would now suddenly be released......free at last!)

Nice try, but no cigar. Clarence's D-28 sounded marvelous BEFORE the change and (go figure!) also sounded marvelous AFTER the change. However, contrary to the myth, it did not sound BETTER because of the change. In all probability, you could cut a few more soundholes into that particular guitar top and it would still sound great. I had the chance to play this guitar for about a week in the early 1970's and I can tell you from personal experience that it really was a very fine sounding instrument, very much in line with other fine sounding vintage D-28's of the period...not BETTER than, but equal to. So, to answer the question, I don't do the large soundhole to make a bigger sounding guitar. I simply build the thing right and it sounds bigger on its own without the gimmicks.

I have used this same double rod ever since and still do when I do an adjustable system. My current guitars, however, feature a large epoxy graphite bar with no adjustment instead of the double steel rod. I like this system much better for three reasons: it is simple, it stays rock solid straight forever, and it is very light thus enhancing the overall sound and responsiveness of the instruments. You can order a guitar with either the adjustable or non-adjustable systems.