Hi Rick,

Most Ovation bowls are made of something called Lyrachord which is kind of a composite of "glass beads" and fiberglass, These have solid-spruce tops. The somewhat more costly regular line of Adamas models have the same bowl material as the wooden-topped Ovations but the tops are a thin laminate of a birch layer with a carbon fiber layer on each side. The entire soundboard is only .035 inches thick compared to a Martin D-28 soundboard at about .110 inches thick. The highest-priced Adamas I models, like mine, have a similar top as the lesser-priced Adamas models but have what's termed an Adamas Suspension Ring (AST) around the top-perimeter of a hand-laid composite bowl. The AST enables the thin carbon fiber/birch/carbon fiber top to vibrate even more freely than a non-AST Adamas top. The Adamas tops, depending on the model, have various underlying wooden bracing patterns that affect the tone. My Adamas I 2080GT-8 has Adamas Fan Bracing which results in a very balanced tone across the tonal spectrum, whereas my long-gone Adamas 2080 NWT had LX Scalloped Bracing that gave it a loud, deeply resonant dreadnought tone.

When you go to a music store these days, the Ovation models you'll likely encounter will be the lower-cost Korean-made, wooden-topped models that are well-made but don't have the resonant tone of the more costly American-made models.

By the way, American-made Ovation wooden-topped guitars and the Adamas models are made up in New Hartford, Connecticut. I've been there once and enjoyed talking to the guys!