Didn't look at the video, but I remember one about LP stop bars and found it kind of anal to evaluate guitar hardware by their impact characteristics.

 

I feel like saddle material is changing the tone so minimal that only a highly trained ear would be able to spot the difference. 99.9999% of people however won't be able to spot any difference, and if you are playing a show for people that are there having a few beers, relaxing and enjoying the show, I don't think anyone is going to say "gee, that guitar would sound way better with a bone saddle". But, maybe someone in the crowd would? 🤷‍♂️

 

if you switch from plastic to bone or Tusk , you will hear a difference .
usually clearer and a bit louder when playing soft on an acoustic,
but if you are expecting a huge diff you will be disappointed.

 

There have been many, many reports from players who have done this and report it sounds better when going from plastic to bone, so I think there is a minimal difference. Some also change the nut to bone. I think that is a little more suspect as the reports are varied. Sometimes we hear what we want to hear and our brains can fool us by suggestion.

I've posted this before but it's been some time ago. Candid Camera did a perfume smell test with a perfume bottle and clear water. When they asked people what they smelled, they got all kinds of different smells, most of them describing perfume smells. It was the "suggestion" that made them smell what they did, not their nose.

 

Cool video. I was a bit surprised how much of a difference it made. Really liked the Ebony. Tusq and Bone were also really good. The plastic sounded harsh to me.

It’ll never be a perfect test due to differences in attack, density of material and other variables but made me think about going down a saddle-testing rabbit hole.

 

The saddle and the saddle pins both affect the sound.

 

Almost anything will slightly change the sound on an acoustic, even the pick! It's a bit of a rabbit hole and obviously subjective to your ears.
A friend of mine started using those liquid metal bridge pins Martin are offering for like $150 or more lol, he swears it makes a difference...is it better? who knows! but it does affect the sound.

 

I think the pick will make the most difference. Try a .50mm for fun you'll see how bright it is.

 

saddle
nut
frets
pick
strings
all made a difference

 

Cool video!
I recently milled my bridge down approx 2mm and added a new bone saddle in place of the original plastic saddle in my nearly 40 year old Hondo. I didn't do any before after videos, but I noticed a significant improvement in sound/intoantion. It really brightened up the sound in my opinion.

 

Problem with bone is they can be so inconsistent in quality and hardness.
My Yairi bone saddle is so soft and my Yamaha bone saddle is so hard in comparison.
It took me less than 15 minutes to sand down my Yairi saddle but even after an hour, my Yamaha saddle barely went down 0.1mm.