Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - We decided to go with 3/4 solid hardwood but what are all these grades

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for thier input but DH has decided he does not like the laminate, Understandable I guess when you know his family even insisited on having hardwood window sills when they built thier house. We have decided to go with one of the Brazilian Woods either Cherry, Teak or Walnut but cannot figure out what the different grades mean. Which is better quality select and better, premuim or clear? Or is it just a question of look as opposed to quality.
TIA,
Barbara

The select woods are the better of the grades,they have a little more of a srict set of inspection guidlines that they go by when picking this particular grade of wood.What size of the planks were you considering?The reason i ask is that we are in the middle of a night witht the brazillian cherry wood,what they picked was a combination of 3,4,5" wood and for the pattern to be repeated over the entire floor.The problem is that we purchased the wood from one place sent it to another to have a beveled edge put on then finished with stain and poly.Not only are the beveled edges all screwed up but the ends on the wood are mis milled as well and the entire job needs to be re-ordered.Some are worse than others but the main problem is in the 5" boards,alot of that is from not being able to pull the 5" tight cause they won't move as well as the smaller boards.
I guess what i'm trying to say here is that you would be way better of with a job finish floor than to have a pre-finished in any size wood.This is a new home and these people are freaking out cause now thew whole thing has to be re-ordered and it will set the closing of the house back a little,where if they would ahve let us finish the wood after the install none of these prblems would even exist :cool: You can go to www.nofma.com for more info if you would like to check them out