Neck bolt too tight...choking the sound?

[Fletchpic]

I was excited after successfully removing and then attaching the NT neck on my 510, but then I realized I forgot to finish tightening the bolt that screws into the top of the guitar. So I loosened the strings and tightened the bolt pretty hard. Then it seemed that the guitar sounded different. At the time I thought it might have had something to do with the strings going dead, but today I tried loosening that bolt again and the guitar came back to life.

Could the neck have been too tight against the top of the guitar, thus choking the sound?

[Edward]

I'm no tech, and have zero basis for a definitive answer.  But given how the neck is bolted into the body and wood block, I do not see how tightening that bolt  --which is simply fastening the neck to the body's neck-mount block more firmly-- will affect what is going on with the soundboard.  There are a bazzillion bolt-on neck guitars out there, and once tightened properly, tightening more does nothing to affect the guitar's ability to vibrate --or resonate-- except for the possibility of stripping wood or threads. So while I "suppose" it's possible with our Taylors, I will think that within a normal range of acceptable torque applied to that bolt and junction, I cannot see it making a difference.  Call the mothership?

Edward

[Fletchpic]

Thanks for your thoughts! The bolt that I am referring to is the one near the sound hole facing the top....not the 2 bolts thar go directly into the neck block. I will experiment more when it's time to change strings. It seems to have affected the sustain, but I will do more tests.