I never commented on the tonality of wood, wood species do play a part in the overall sound of solidbody guitars, but it takes more than just a good chunk of wood to make a guitar, a guitar is the sum total of design, materials, and construction. What people believe makes a guitar sound great, and what really makes a difference, are sometimes 2 different things, I've been looking into this for over 20 years, and have seen the mojo change from one thing to another, heavy wood, light wood, this species, that species, I think a few people are finally doing some real scientific research, and I hope some of the old myths and legends are put to rest by it, the sad part of that is that the large manufacturers are probably going to keep doing things like they always have, because of the prestige of the brand name, people will keep on paying the money. I think that 2 solidbody electric guitars , made with the same design, same species of wood, similar hardware and electronics, will sound so close to the same, that you can't just boil down the difference to the wood, But, if I'm a manufacturer and I can convince everybody that I use better wood than the other guy, and that's why my product is better than the other guys, I just might outsell the competition, and I think that's kind of what this thread is about, alot of guitarists have suffered from mass hypnosis, they have heard from day one that Gibson is the best, so that what has become the truth, regardless of the facts, is their really $1600 worth of tangible difference between the Gibson and the Epi?..........................