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For an acoustic guitar which do you prefer: Cedar or Spruce?
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Personally I'd go with cedar. Its a beautiful dense wood with great resonance.
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What style music am I using it for and what tone wood is it matched to??? Who's the builder? What body size and scale legnth??Really, I think this is impossible to answer because every tone wood has it's place.... Finger picking usually favors cedar and strumming goes with spruce... However there are always exceptions, even from one piece of cedar to another and the same for spruce and all it's subspecies.
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Just cedar or spruce. Right now I'm looking at Seagul Dreads and Folks. All short scale, all Canadian, and all plain but beautiful and sound lovely.
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Spruce for me since it more strum friendly.
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I think spruce is a bit more popular in the wood lovers category.
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whatever they build the best Martin guitars with.
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Adirondak top for me please, Red Spruce..........................................I would take an Alpine Spruce 2nd choice 
Last edited by wlbaye (2011-06-29 03:51:03)
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Spruce SEEMS to be more strum-friendly to me also. Anyone want to weigh in?
I've got target lock on the cedar "sister" of my S6 and am curious.
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I have a Seagull Entourage Mini Jumbo. The cedar top is beautiful and the sound is great. The draw back in my view is that it dings up very easily. Cedar is very soft.
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Cedar VS Spruce is largely a matter of tone preference;
First off, whichever wood you select, a solid, pressure-tested top is highly recommended for best performance ... you'll be glad you spent the extra. A laminated top (and/or sides) will greatly reduce the tone, detail, and volume of the instrument. The glued layers of a laminated top increase its overall density, and it simply doesn't resonate as well.
I have two Cedar tops (LaPatrie "Concert", Norman ST40). Both have a soft, gentle tone, with lots of warmth but not as big on volume or low end. As someone has mentioned, Cedar lends itself well to finger-picking, which is why most classical guitars use it. My Larrivee D-03 on the other hand is a Sitka Spruce top, and has more volume with much more fullness of tone and low-end punch.
For durability, Cedar is indeed softer than Spruce so requires care, and because it's more porous it reacts quicker to humidity changes.
I sincerely hope some of this is useful.
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I like whatever wood that they use on Martin guitars,like pete's d-28
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Dont know that much about it, I just pick em up and strum,, if I like I buy or add to the "I WANT" list.
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Mine's mahogany 
- I don't know that I've played a cedar top. Only Spruce, Koa, Mahogany, and laminate. ha ha!
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As with all guitars, the one I prefer is the one in my hands at any particular moment.
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I've got three spruce top guitars. I'd go with cedar or mahogany for a new one.
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Mine both have sitka spruce top and indian rosewood back and sides. I will also get a mahogany next time
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