As to the difference between f-hole and o-hole guitars -- they are different beasts, made for different sounds. The flat-top guitar, which has the round soundhole, is based on the earliest classical guitars, and the soundhole is intended to maximize the tone and volume of the instrument. With gut (or nylon) strings, you don't need heavy bracing, so the braces under the bridge and throughout the top are there only to keep the top vibrating in the proper manner and to prevent self-destruction, as the tension of the strings tries to both lift the bridge and rotate it and to pull the bridge into the soundhole. With steel strings, the top began to be braced with a large pair of braces forming an "X", effectively crossing just in front of the bridge.

All flat-top guitars try for a tone with lots of lows and mids, and a long decay (pluck the string and it rings forever). But in the early part of the last century, there arose a need for an instrument with even more volume and a sharp, actually somewhat nasal tone -- with rapid note decay. Someone (actually, a man named Lloyd Loar, who worked for the Gibson mandolin & guitar company) decided that the violin was a good place to start when making a lead instrument, one with lots of volume and quick decaying notes. He produced the f-hole mandolin (the Gibson F-5) and the archtop guitar (the Gibson L-5). All archtop guitars since then have been intended for the kind of music that features punchy, quick-decaying notes and reasonable, if not loud, volume. So we find them in use for jazz and pop bands, and, in an interesting happenstance, country music (as personified by Mabel Carter's playing in the original Carter Family).

Not everyone likes the archtop sound, and some of the cheaply-made ones are pretty harsh-sounding, but for what they are intended for, there is no substitute. Try playing western swing with a D-28, and you will get mush instead of sharp "sock" chords that provide you with the rhythmic pulse of the Texas Playboys or similar bands.

Similarly, F-5 mandolins are more prominent in (and suited to) bluegrass than, say, an oval-hole model like the Gibson "A" series, which usually have sweeter tones that don't decay as quickly.


Different folks needs different strokes, you might say.


Songbob