AcornHouse
Venerated Member
And more acoustic archtops are built with x-bracing these days as well. The parallel-ish tone bars give that old style punchy fundamental dominant sound; x-braces give a more complex warm sound with richer overtones. Benedetto uses both but he feels the x-brace is a better, more modern, sound.And, to further muddy the waters, f-hole mandos can also be x-braced (all (most?) oval/round hole ones are x-braced). And those are symmetrical.
So, what is actually necessary and what is done because Lloyd Loar did it needs to be investigated.
But, it's just another way to tailor the sound to the player's wants and needs.