New generation

Wood quality is a number

The LucchiMeter uses ultrasound to measure the speed of sound in tonewood: the number the whole world calls the “Lucchi value”.

Discover PRO and BASIC How it works

LucchiMeter PRO and BASIC side by side on a wooden workbench — PRO and BASIC, the new generation.

Giovanni Lucchi measures a wood plate with the LucchiMeter — Giovanni Lucchi measures a plate with his instrument, in Cremona.

The name that became a measurement

In 1983, in Cremona, master bow maker Giovanni Lucchi was looking for an objective way to choose the Pernambuco for his bows. He found it by measuring the speed at which sound travels through the wood: a precise physical quantity, expressed in m/sec, taken non-destructively with two ultrasonic probes.

Forty years on, bow makers, violin makers and guitar makers all over the world call that speed the “Lucchi value”. It remains, to all effects, the speed of sound — but it carries the name of the man who taught the world to measure it.

"Technology should be seen as offering instruments that serve to boost talent. Talent is a unique quality: it can be neither measured nor sold." Giovanni Lucchi, master bow maker and inventor of the LucchiMeter

How do you choose your wood today?

By eye. By weight. By tapping the plate and listening. By experience. And yet two plates that look identical can transmit sound in completely different ways — and often you find out only once the instrument is finished, when it is too late.

The LucchiMeter measures that difference before you even start working the wood: on plates, bow sticks, whole logs and finished instruments.

Stacks of sectioned tonewood spruce, waiting to be selected — Same species, same appearance. But the sound they will produce is not the same.

The stiffest wood is not the best

Instinct says: the harder and stiffer the wood, the better it sounds. It is not so. Stiffness — Young's modulus — measures the force of the material, not its ability to vibrate and return harmonics. What matters is the speed of sound.

Weightlifter analogy: force divided by weight, specific elasticity — Two athletes lift the same 200 kg. But the one who weighs half has twice the specific elasticity. For wood it is the same: what counts is the ratio, not force alone.

Table of two spruce samples with the same Young's modulus but different sound speed — Two spruce samples with the **same Young's modulus** (119): the speed of sound is 6300 against 4280 m/sec. Young's modulus alone can deceive.

How it works Reference Values

Who are you?

Measuring a bow stick with the LucchiMeter probes

Bow makers

Selecting Pernambuco for bows — responsive, rich in harmonics. The field in which the LucchiMeter was born, in 1983.

Violin makers

Spruce for the soundboard, maple for back and ribs. Longitudinal and transverse speed to read the structure of the wood.

Andy Powers (Taylor Guitars) measures a guitar top with the LucchiMeter

Guitar makers

Spruce or cedar tops, rosewood or maple backs: repeatable criteria to compare different batches of wood.

What they say about us

"The LucchiMeter lets us select wood with repeatable criteria, to compare different batches without relying on experience alone." Andy Powers, Taylor Guitars

"For those who buy and sell high-level bows, the Lucchi value is a figure that gives substance to a subjective judgment. It lets you compare Pernambuco sticks on the same scale." Julian Hersh, Reuning & Son

All testimonials