In general I like the tone of Koa, but I find the wood itself varies in density from piece to piece, more so than most tone woods. A very dense set of koa can make an incredible guitar, but a light weight "spongy" piece will typically yield a guitar much like what people here have described as being the typical koa sound they don't like... weak, muted, not a great bass response, etc. I think that if you're shopping for a koa guitar, you really need to play a lot of them to find the really special ones, since once the guitar is built you lose the luxury of handling the raw wood to determine the tonal qualities and you're basically gravitating towards what looks good.

I have found that koa sounds to me better on smaller body instruments, particularly if you have a koa top too.
I had a SJ all koa once, it just didn't have much. I had a C-10 all koa and it was great, I sold it through Cotten's because it had a 1 11/16 neck and I now like 1 3/4. I should have had them make me a new neck!
I've also got an old Martin, OO-18K which has a nice sound.
I had a Martin D-42 koa/spruce once but it was lacking the punch that a mahogony or rosewood would have.
There's my 2 cents.

My first Collings was a koa/adi D3, and by any standard it was one of the best buitars I've owned. In a foolish episode of GAS, I sold it to a friend in Nashville with right of first refusal if he should decide to sell it. He won't sell, and he also feels it is at the top of his remarkable collection. Bruce picked the woods at Collings.

My other koa is a OO-42 with a redspruce top and bracing. Koa's getting hard and harder to find, and Bruce suggested that I call in my sources. We found several sets but one had the perfect tap tone, and that was the one we used. I've played it at our moderate sized church a couple of times, and it could fill the room.

Like sonoman says, I'd look elsewhere besides the tonewood. Methinks there is a setup problem, a string mismatch, perhaps both.

Dr Bill,

Very sage advice. I would be foolish to quit on it until I exhausted every channel to improve the tone. This is a jaw dropping breath-catching, neck wrenching double taking, eyes scrunched and lips pursed into that ooohhhhhhhh shape as soon as you see it piece of work. (I may be a tab biased here, maybe it just looks pretty nice...)These guys at Collings sure know how to put together a gitfiddle. The guitar sounds OK - not ear grabbing like my OM (and I am sure my OM is a run of the mill Collings OM - they likely all sound like this). I'm going to do the best I can to get objective opinions from local guys - anybody willing to either come by and play it or have me over and let you play at your place - I would be most appreciative and very interested in your opinion. I am also headed out to Boston. Maybe I will bring it and take it back to the Music Emporium and see what they have to say. I have a buddy back there who is the head tech at Fishman. He sees hundreds of guitars - he just finished putting pickups in James Taylor's Olson's. Yes plural, I believe it was four...I think he could give me a very objective opinion. Of course if he disses the guitar then lugging it back to California might not be a particularly pleasureable experience.

Anyway - thanks everybody who contributed. I say it a lot - this is a great place.

Joe

Come on folks, koa is not muted or bland in its tonal character, looks aside, koa is a fantastic (sounding) tone wood, it's been used in guitars for a long long time, try a hundred or more years. If it didn't hold up on the sonic end, but was only used because it's good looking, then it would have fallen out of favor a long time ago. But it hasn't and the top guitar builders are building with koa. I agree that it's more toward the maple and mahogany end of the spectrum: brighter, woodier. It doesn't sound anything like rosewood and if you are expecting it to sound like rosewood you might be disappointed. But from its own tonal sphere, so to speak, koa is every bit the tone wood that rosewood is.

Also, to the OP, you are giving way too much credence to the species of the back and sides wood in determining the volume and power of the two guitars you are comparing. The OM may very well be louder and more powerful, but I doubt the back and sides wood has much to do with determining that. Top wood, bracing under the top, and scale length are far more important in determining not just tonal character, but volume, projection, sustain, etc.

I may sound like a party-pooper here, but Koa to my ears over the many years I have played guitars, and the many guitars I have owned and now own, is the some of the prettiest wood I have ever seen, and some of the most ordinary sounding wood I have ever seen.

If you're looking for a similar eye appeal and with some of the same sound characteristics, and probably cheaper, I would suggest claro walnut. With that said, and I own a claro walnut Goodall, the tone is less distinctive, much like Koa, than rosewood or even mahogany.

Just one man's opinion, and is probably worth about that.

I agree with jeff, Koa is a gorgeous looking wood, but I have never been impressed by it's tonal quality on a guitar.
I do, although, own a 50's Kamaka Ukelele that is completely made of Koa and it sounds great!

I have owned lots of Koa guitars over the years, many sizes, lots of different top-woods. I actually owned a very unusual Koa Collings that was called a "squat body." (Imagine a Collings SJ been squashed down to where the bottom bout was 17" instead of 16".) Clearly a visually stunning wood!

I would agree with MikeD's comment about the variance in density within different pieces of Koa. Actually talked to a Koa tonewood supplier who indicated there was definitely a tonal difference amongst different Koa logs.

I'm a big believer in the school of thought that the top and how it is voiced relative to whatever the back and side wood has far more influence on an individual guitar's voice. Yes there are some generalities as regards Koa or any back/side tonewood, but the top choices can significantly yield very different guitars built with almost identical sets of Koa.

I have thumped a lot of different sets of tonewood set over the years, listening for tonal tap. If you have never done this, (or been shown the right way to do it) you would be amazed at how "thuddy"/dull certain tonewood sets are! And yes, certain sets of Koa seem fairly lifeless. But so do some sets of tonewood you would never imagine not having nice ring to them.

It is another kudo to the great luthier's building today that they can produce amazing guitars out of sometimes rather ordinary sounding wood. My 2 cents........

I've played a lot of koa guitars and have to agree with some here that the smaller body models sound better. The best sounding Collings Baby I've played was a Koa.Some of those 20's/30's Martin 0/00's are outstanding.I've played more large Goodall koa dogs than I care to mention but have enjoyed a few nice Froggy koa guitars in the small to medium size box.Steve at AMW has had 2 nice Collings OM K's one with a G top that's still there ....maybe? Killer...

You have to play a lot of them to find a good one because they do run from dead to stuffy,to warm,to brilliant. Let's just say I've played more ho-hum ones than where's my plastic I'm taking this one home.

Hey Everyone

I am the OP. I would classify myself as a complete neophyte when it comes to judging guitar tonewoods. I have only owned 2 good acoustic guitars in my life, and they are the 2 Collings I have mentioned. My entire experience has been garnered shopping for these two guitars. So how do I come up with this question unless the difference is significant and real? The Koa guitar I have is dull compared to the OM, not just harmonically different. It does not ring the way the OM does, it does not sustain, and it certainly does not project the way the OM does. Of course it may be set up incorrectly, and I may be using the wrong strings, and of course I may be playing them in some biased fashion.

That being said, I would like to add a second question to the mix - and that is obviously how the Adirondack top will effect the guitar's tone. We heard from a couple of guys here that the top is what makes the sound, and that the sides and back have a minor influence. So what does Adi do to the mix? What are the typical tonal characteristics of Adirondack Spruce that are complicating this issue? I know it is coveted and a desired top wood, but I haven't found anyone who will provide a good answer to what role the Adi will play in the overall tone of this guitar? Is there a Koa/Adi devotee out there who can tell me honestly what they think of the combination?

Thank you all once again. It is really nice to have you all as a giant resource. I appreciate the help.

Joe

Joe,

I have a koa/Adirondack Froggy Bottom in the K size (similar to a Collings SJ but maybe a bit bigger). I was leary at first as I thought this pairing would be harsh sounding but that has not been my experience. Froggy builds primarily with Adi and it's a great guitar. My Collings is a CJ in mahogany/Adi and it is my favorite guitar overall, although the gap has narrowed some. The Froggy fits better on my lap for noodling around than the CJ.

There must be something going on with yours in either the set-up or structurally. Are you the original owner? If so, I'd call Collings and ask them for their opinions and who to have take a look at it (I'd do this even if you're not the original owner too). I guess it's possible yours is just a clunker though...

Grant

The top is a huge factor, but I went back and read your original post Joe, I will add that rosewood is a hard and dense wood, it tends to efficiently reflect sonic energy, the sound waves bounce right off. Koa, mahogany, maple, these woods are softer, they tend to absorb some of the sonic energy and reflect less sonic energy than rosewood. I am not saying rosewood is superior, that's subjective, maybe rosewood reflects too much sonic energy, depends on your outlook. It's all relative.

That said, rosewood guitars tend to have a broader harmonic spectrum, i.e. more overtones, again - this is neither good or bad, it depends on what you like. The other back and sides woods tend to create guitars that have more a fundamental timbre. In a mahogany or maple or koa guitar - when you play a G you get a G. With rosewood, when you play a G, you get a G along with a lot of additional harmonic content. Traditionalists often prefer the more fundamental sound of mahogany, for example. Modern style players may prefer rosewood. This is a huge generalization.

But I think a lot of people are conditioned to want to hear all that additional harmonic content that rosewood can impart. And oftentimes, when those same individuals pick up a maple guitar, for example, they are disappointed because their expectations aren't met. They are psychologically waiting to hear rosewood and they hear something other and think it's wrong or dull or whatever.

You may not even realize it, but your ear and mind may be trained to hear rosewood. I know I was like that at one point in my life. But I retrained my ear to hear and expect a different timbre and now maple is my favorite tone wood. (try playing an archtop and see if you think it sounds dull, a lot of people do. but once you learn to play one and understand how an archtop is supposed to sound, you may end up loving it).

So to summarize, it may be a matter of your expectations, and that may be your biggest hurdle, and that's important to remember. Still, the top wood is far more important than the back and sides wood. And bracing, scale length, box size, and setup will also play a factor.

OM compared to SJ is a smaller and shallower box, the sound on the OM will jump out of the box much more quickly, whereas on the SJ the sound waves spend more time in the box, this could also be part of what you are experiencing. There are a multitude of variables that will effect the sound of a guitar. Each guitar is different, we wouldn't have different size guitars with different woods if there wasn't a difference. You have to learn to appreciate and play each individual guitar and understand how to extract the best possible sound from every guitar you play. If you play one guitar with the same attack and technique as another all the while expecting the two guitars to sound the same, you may be disappointed with one of them.

I have little doubt that SJ is challenging you to extract the best possible tone out of it. But you have to put in the effort too.