It is commonly said that a higher action on an acoustic guitar will result in better tone overall. If you ask why, you may likely be told, as I have been, the higher action allows more space for the strings to vibrate, in turn allowing subtle frequencies to increase in volume, resulting a more complex sound and better tone. What? Yeah It sounds fishy to me too. I want to ask if this theory may be correct:
The process of sanding down the saddle in the bridge results in a more shallow string angle. I am referring the the angle the string makes with the sound board in this picture BTW:
Andy McGibbon (excuse my Afrikaans spelling ? ) told us at a workshop that a steeper angle transmits more vibrations to the soundboard, resulting in better tone. It is simply vertical and horizontal vector components really. A steeper angle will result in a greater vertical force and a diminished horizontal one (for a guitar laying flat, like the earth)
Now, is it possible that the reduction of action height will result in loss of tone and volume, not because of the reduction of height itself, but rather because of the change in string angle due to reshaping the saddle?
Here is an interesting article that proposes a solution, what do you think?
http://www.eltjohaselhoff.com/how_to_make_your_guitar_sound_better.htm
