This paper addresses wood modification as a tool for the use of European native wood species in high quality musical instruments as a brief review of a case study carried out. Regional woods were thermally modified and tested for their suitability as a tropical wood substitute in classical guitars. Thermal modification was developed in laboratory scale using a patented procedure. The reached properties due to the thermal modification of the wood were always compared with the tropical wood assortments so far to be used as well as to be replaced. Component-specific preferred variants were then manufactured on a pilot scale. Finally, entire test instruments, classical guitars, were made using the modified wood and compared with identical reference guitars by means of subjective testing methods with professional musicians. As a result, it was found that it is possible to replace the tropical woods previously used with some thermally modified regional woods without any significant loss of sound quality.