My non-scientific belief is that overly large f-holes are not good for tone. I will try to explain, based on a lengthy conversation I had about a decade ago with Tom Martin. We think that when the f-holes of a bass are really big, the sound jumps out of the bass quickly, creating the illusion of power. But when the f-holes are sized right, the sound has more time to roll around inside the corpus and it gets seasoned. Then the tone is more complex and woody, but the bass may not sound quite as loud in the immediate surrounding area. However, it will spread out into the hall and the audience will get more bass sound. Now this begs the question, "what is the right size?". My answer is, I know it when I see it. I think many of the Italian and English masters had it right, i.e., Panormo, the Testores, Ruggieri, etc. Contrarily, to my eye many of the Germans, Viennese, and some of the Americans make/made their f-holes overly large and open. And I have also had experience where very small f-holes seem to be holding back the power of a bass. I had the experience of enlarging them on a fine bass once, and I thought the instrument's power improved. Then again, other modifications were made, so I can't be sure.
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