Mahogany vs Rosewood: Which Guitar Wood Is Better?

You've found two dreadnoughts that look like twins: same body, same Adirondack top, same neck, and the only real difference on the spec sheet is the back and sides. One is rosewood and costs more. The other is mahogany. Every forum thread you open has someone who knows exactly what each one sounds like, and they don't agree with each other. So the mahogany vs rosewood question gets harder the more you read about it.

We've taken that question on twice with matched pairs, a Boucher Bluegrass Goose set and Yamaha's FG9 R and FG9 M, guitars built the same in every way except the wood. The difference is real, but it's smaller than the forums make it sound, and how you play matters more than which wood is "better."

Mahogany vs rosewood: the short answer

If you mostly strum and sing, start with rosewood. If you play lead, flatpick fast runs or need to be heard in a jam, start with mahogany. Here's how the two woods behave on matched guitars:

• Rosewood gives you more low end, and a defined, rich one, with a filling tone that takes up the whole room. That's what makes it so good under a vocal.
• Mahogany pushes the midrange forward, so notes pop out with more punch, and it responds back to the player more. When you're playing quick, each note comes through clean.
• Price: on every matched pair we stock today, the rosewood version costs more, from $100 more on the Yamaha FG9 to $500 more on the Martin D-28.

Neither one is wrong. We own great guitars in both woods and wouldn't trade any of them, and owning one of each is the best answer if you can manage it.

Why we test mahogany vs rosewood with identical guitars

Comparing a Martin D-18 to a D-28 is the classic way to hear the two woods, but those guitars also differ in binding, rosette and other appointments, so you're never hearing only the wood. That's why our first test used two Boucher Bluegrass Goose dreadnoughts, a BG-42-GM with mahogany back and sides and a BG-52-GM with rosewood. Both had thermo-cured master-grade Adirondack tops, koa binding, an ebony fretboard and bridge, a mahogany neck, a bone nut and saddle, and a 1 3/4" nut. The Bluegrass Goose is voiced toward a traditional bluegrass sound with a slightly higher setup, so both guitars were aimed at the same player. If you want the background on that line, our Boucher Bluegrass Goose post covers it.

The other thing we learned is how to listen. If you play one guitar, set it down and pick up the other, the few seconds in between are enough to blur what you heard. Switching back and forth quickly, with the same player and the same lick, is the only way your ear catches the difference right away.

Jump to: who should play which wood at 5:50, the back-to-back splice at 10:20, and our verdict at 13:24.

What rosewood back and sides do for a dreadnought

On the rosewood side of the mahogany vs rosewood choice, the wood fills in the bottom of the guitar. The low end is bigger, but it's also tight and defined rather than boomy, and the guitar has a room-filling quality that makes it feel larger than it is. When you're strumming chords and singing, that fullness is exactly what you want behind your voice.

"A great rhythm guitar with rosewood back and sides is almost impossible to beat."

The trade-off shows up when you speed up. Rosewood has so much resonance that it can almost overpower the next note, so fast single-note runs don't separate as cleanly. For a rhythm player that's a feature. For a lead player it's the reason to look at mahogany.

What mahogany back and sides do

In a mahogany vs rosewood pairing, mahogany is the one that responds to the player. You feel more bounce back from the guitar as you dig in, the midrange is more pronounced, and the notes jump out with more punch. That matters more than people think, because a guitar's sound sits in a range that's hard to pick out once a band is playing. The extra mids and highs are what keep a mahogany guitar audible in a group.

Fast players notice it most. With mahogany, each note in a quick run is more precise and the definition stays clear, which is why so many flatpickers lean that way. If you want to go deeper on mahogany guitars specifically, we played six of them blind in our D-18 alternatives shootout.

John's favorite example is Clarence White, who owned both a D-18 and a D-28 and loved them both. He usually grabbed the mahogany guitar for instrumentals and the D-28 for singing bluegrass standards. Given the choice, that's our plan too: play your leads on mahogany, then switch to rosewood when it's time to sing.

The blind test: Yamaha FG9 R vs FG9 M

Our second matched pair came from Yamaha. The FG9 R and FG9 M are the same dreadnought: a solid Adirondack spruce top, scalloped X bracing, an ebony fretboard and bridge, a 1 3/4" bone nut and Gotoh 510 tuners. The R has solid Indian rosewood back and sides, and the M has African mahogany. We think Yamaha voiced the FG9 a little on the warm side, leaning toward a Martin sound, with the detail you'd expect from a boutique build. You can read more about the guitar itself in our Yamaha FG9 features rundown.

John played them blind, switching back and forth, and Jeremy couldn't tell the mahogany from the rosewood. That's the honest result of our mahogany vs rosewood blind test, and it lines up with what we said after the Boucher test.

"I have heard bigger differences between two different guitars."

In other words, two guitars of the same model with the same wood can differ as much as a matched mahogany and rosewood pair. The wood moves the sound in a direction, but it doesn't decide the whole sound.

Jump to: the FG9's voicing at 9:00, the blind switch at 22:45, and the result at 24:38.

Rosewood vs mahogany pairs in stock today

If you want to hear the difference for yourself, these are the matched pairs we have right now. Prices are from our listings as we write this, and serialized guitars sell, so check the link for the current unit.

The Yamaha pair is the cleanest mahogany vs rosewood test you can buy, because nothing but the wood changes. The Martins also differ in trim, and we cover that pair in detail in our Martin D-18 vs D-28 comparison. On a smaller budget, the Eastman E20OM-TC #2896 at $2,119 gives you solid rosewood under a thermo-cured Adirondack top, in a smaller orchestra model body. For more on the rosewood side of Martin's line, see our D-28 vs HD-28 breakdown.

How to hear mahogany vs rosewood for yourself

In our showroom, or at home with two guitars on a trial, this is the order we'd follow:

1. Play the same chord progression on each guitar, strumming the way you normally do.
2. Play the same lead line or fiddle tune on each, at your normal speed and then faster.
3. Switch quickly. Don't set one guitar down for a minute before picking up the next.
4. Listen for which one fills the room on chords, and which one keeps each note separate on the runs.
5. Pick the one that does best at what you play most.

Whichever pair you try, both guitars go through our 23-Point Professional Inspection before they ship, so you're comparing the wood and not one guitar that plays better than the other.

Which wood should you buy?

Here's how the mahogany vs rosewood choice shakes out for most players:

• Buy rosewood if you're a singer-songwriter, you play mostly rhythm, or you play solo and want the guitar to fill the room on its own.
• Buy mahogany if you flatpick, play a lot of lead, or play in a bluegrass jam where a guitar has to cut through.
• Buy both if you do both. That's what we did, and it's the plan we'd recommend to anyone who sings and plays lead.

If you're also deciding how much to spend, our best mahogany dreadnoughts under $1,600 guide is a good place to start on the mahogany side.

Every guitar in the table above is covered by our Dread-Not Guarantee. You get a full year to trade it in for up to 90% of the pre-tax purchase price in credit, less round-trip shipping, plus a 30-day in-home trial. So if you buy the mahogany guitar and find yourself singing more than you expected, you can move to rosewood without starting over.

Related reading

• Solid vs laminate acoustic guitars: does it matter?
• E10D vs LD60e vs FG5: three mahogany dreadnoughts, scored

Find your mahogany or rosewood dreadnought

If you strum and sing, start with a rosewood guitar like the FG9 R or a Martin D-28. If you play lead, start with mahogany, like the FG9 M or a Martin D-18. You can browse every one we have in our dreadnought guitars, the Yamaha and Eastman collections, our Boucher guitars, or all of our acoustic guitars. If you can't decide, call or stop by the shop and we'll play both for you.