Fading Guitar Top

Hey badeye, This is what's called ageing. The darkening is in relation to uv light exposure. The more exposure a guitar gets  to uv rays the quicker it will darken. As far as it sounding better...I'm sure your improving but all guitars with at least a solid top will open up over time. This is caused by two factors. The first is of course age, the wood dries out and the sap begins to crystalize allowing the top to vibrate more freely. Age alone will not cause a guitar to open up though. It's the combination of the ageing and the vibration of the top from being played. Many even believe that if you take a guitar that has opened up and store it for long perods it will go back to sleep.  They've even developed machines to open up a guitar. I believe they are most commonly referred to as tumblers. It's a device that can be mounted in the guitar to vibrate it at the same rate as being played so that it opens up more quickly. This technique receives mixed reviews and I'm not recommending it. I just thought I'd throw it in for interest. However I do keep my cased acoustics close to my amps....I'm not saying it helps but it can't really hurt for them to vibrate to whatever I'm playing at the time...Peace! -Pix