It's much louder and easier to play. The notes ring out and last a long time. He says a parabolic brace is as structurally sound as a straight brace, but the elimination of unnecessary wood along the sides allows for greater vibration and therefore more sound. Van Linge's most revolutionary theory, however, is his conviction about where notes are created inside the guitar. Tradition has held that higher frequencies vibrate through the right half of the guitar and lower frequencies vibrate through the left half, corresponding to the side of the bridge where the high or low strings attach.
Sound vibrates out of the face of the guitar in concentric rings, similar to a stereo speaker cone.
Brace shaving can weaken the body slightly, says van Linge, but he knows when to stop before problems like bowing can begin. The trick is in knowing how much you can take off, and where. The amount of shavings I take out of a typical guitar fill a quart-size Ziploc bag. Van Linge is not the first to discover the value in shaving braces. He was introduced to the idea by Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead fame during a guitar lesson in 1965.