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zt3 - can be better?


gimox

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hi i own a ZT3 from 2 week.

 

let me say it's a good guitar but o think steinberger has left something wrong.

 

 

(1) setup and screw

 

first. It's korean assembled......like the 80% guitar in the world, but it's not so good as it must be! many screw are loosen, the screw nek are not good mounted, the trust road is not as not setup, my input jack has a wire not solder...

 

this are all think that i can solve in 15 minutes but, WEHRE is the glorious reputation of Steinberger?

 

(2) Pickup

 

they are gibson 490 set, it's not so bad. The sound it's good but the sustain it's not good... there is something wrong.....

 

i'm very undecided to change them with other....

 

The electrical circuit it's not so bad, but not good for a steinberger. Jack out and pots are poor quality (hey man a bourn pot cost 2$!!!).

 

 

The Zt3 can be a better guitar with 50$.....

 

 

anyone has change the pot with bourn or cts and use a different capacitors like orange drop 0.47?

 

 

i want to let a change at custom pickup.....

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You talk truths. My ZT3 arrived with no previous set up of the trus rod and the action was really high (it was unpleasing to play it as it was).

I don't know if it was the guitar or the pick ups, but zero sustain. The inside wires bad solded (but they worked correctly).

The input of the jack is really unstable, the thread of the input is always falling. The little hex key of the guitar is too little for the knob. The locker of the one-ball strings can't hold the string and it slides down.

The zer fret is really soft (well I don't know if that's and error or if it is always like this) and having the guitar for a whole year, every string has a weared hole in the fret.

 

They all are little details that makes something.

Then I see that's not only me that feel strange things in the guitar.

Once set up, it's a really good guitar. Really comfortable. Has nice playing. The strings are harder than other guitars I've played before, but in the correct set up it stops minding you. And well the pickups weren't the ones of my preference so I changed them.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi.

I'm new and have owned my ZT3 for 4 days. I LOVE it, but it needed some love.

The action wasn't good out of the box. I like the best action possible, a virtually dead straight neck, and 9-46 strings.

So I set it up real nice. It plays much better now. The trussrod was all out of wack out of the box, so I of course took care of that.

 

The zero fret is too high, so i sanded that down.

The string saddles were shifted too far to the high E side, so i put a brass shim between the high E saddle and the transtrem body, so when i lock the saddles, it won't push them. now the string alignment is perfect. It would be great if there was another saddle lock on the other side and we could adjust the string alignment with the neck because I've seen that off on many ZT3s. I'll probably put one in once I figure out how to remove the transtrem.

 

I am very happy with it, and although it wasn't perfect, i think it's a hell of a guitar.

The pickups might have to go. They don't have much sparkle to them and although they sound thick, they are lacking compared to my other guitars with duncans.

 

Thanks

-johnnycat

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Hi.

I'm new and have owned my ZT3 for 4 days. I LOVE it, but it needed some love.

The action wasn't good out of the box. I like the best action possible, a virtually dead straight neck, and 9-46 strings.

So I set it up real nice. It plays much better now. The trussrod was all out of wack out of the box, so I of course took care of that.

 

The zero fret is too high, so i sanded that down.

The string saddles were shifted too far to the high E side, so i put a brass shim between the high E saddle and the transtrem body, so when i lock the saddles, it won't push them. now the string alignment is perfect. It would be great if there was another saddle lock on the other side and we could adjust the string alignment with the neck because I've seen that off on many ZT3s. I'll probably put one in once I figure out how to remove the transtrem.

 

I am very happy with it, and although it wasn't perfect, i think it's a hell of a guitar.

The pickups might have to go. They don't have much sparkle to them and although they sound thick, they are lacking compared to my other guitars with duncans.

 

Thanks

-johnnycat

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  • 1 year later...

I just picked up an open box for $699.00 on ebay. When it arrived the neck was shaped like the letter" U" !

I was a little worried that it would be a problem but the truss worked great. The action was about 1/4 inch off the finger board but after adjusting the saddles and checking for buzz up every string i was able to achive a nice low action. The middle pos. is tuned to A 440 and is very stable both in the locked and free position. More tweeking will be needed to transpose halfsteps up and down but ..... So far, so good

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