Official Luthiers Forum!

Yes, I would suspect that most of the US suppliers get their 'Carpathian' from the same European supplier, as my experience of 'Carpathian' Euro is the same as Alex's. It's just as variable as any other European spruce. Perhaps in Europe we get it from a wider range of sources, so see the variability.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Laurent, the kind of variation you're describing exists within a single species with great ease. I usually select my own tops at Rivolta, and that alone is an education in itself. It's all Euro spruce, all from the same part of italy, cut in the same year, one assumes roughly the same logging region.

But the variation is huge - variable density, wide grained to narrow, even grain, stiff to floppy, in every possible permutation. My preference is for lighter weight tops with high stiffness, and I don't particularly care how even the grain is. Compared to the Lutz and Sitka I have the wood's equally stiff but lighter, but there are plenty of pieces of wood with similar physical characteristics.

Bottom line: get a trusted vendor, tell them what you like/want from a piece a wood of the species you like the overall characteristics of.

Mattia, I am well aware of variations within species, and have seen more tops of every kind at Pantheon/Bourgeois that I'll probably see in my whole career.
However, I am not the only builder to differentiate between the two Carpathian types I have described earlier. The wide grain stuff coming in the US a few years back was pretty unique, and IMHO special.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/