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SamBooka

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Everything posted by SamBooka

  1. Dave, you are slipping. You forgot wrong (single ply) pickguard. :P
  2. Oh my God! Zombie thread! Year after this post I picked up and ES 125 And a class 5 And an AC 4 with a 10 inch Passed on the beater Strat because my 76 Ibanez smokes all the ones I've played from the 70s Glad you still love you Zephyr, I remember is being a special guitar when I tried one
  3. but you have to admit.. guitars can be hard to photograph.
  4. I replied earlier .. guess it didnt save (happens when I am at work when my boss walks in). Anyway.. if I find a pickup too "muddy" I change the pots first. If it is a 250K I go to 500K .. A 500K would be replaced by a 1Meg I find that when the cap value sets a point where the control says " Ok..anything above frequency X I am going to roll off" If the value is too high, xfrequency is too low and the tone control acts almost like a volume control. .22 usually is fine for most of my guitar but I do have a .18 in my Emp Reg with CC style pickup.
  5. well.. the thing is... The 165 and the ZepReg sound nothing alike acoustically. The 165 is like all 175s... and electric instrument. Pretty underwhelming unplugged unless you happen to be Joe Pass (even then I hear he wasnt very happy about the circumstances or the end result). I play my 165 plugged in (currently to a Traynor YGM4 while fixing my Vibrochamp Reverb) If I want to play unplugged that is where the EmpReg comes in. It is NOT a stellar acoustic but unplugged it stands head and shoulders above the 165 (we are comparing apples and tangerines here to be fair.. ) When shopping for the EmpReg I tried a ZepReg and was stunned by the warm dark acoustic tone.. Not as loud as the EmpReg but not far off and spooky good. I only passed because at the time I wanted a more flexible pickup option, 25.5 scale, venetian cutaway, 17in guitar. I was also worried about the Zep Reg being TOO dark, especially when I got the flatwounds on it. Ok.. done blabing.. cut to the chase. I have put maybe 200$ into my EmpReg. That money is gone. I paid 600$ so I am in 800$. I see them for sale here recently for 550$ week after week on CL. My 165 I paid 1750$ for it and the pickup was already a Classic 57+ so all I put into it was 20$ for the ebony bridge. I will get every penny of that back if and when i sell it. ZepReg vs 165? Both are great guitars. Very similar on paper, very different tone. IF not for the tone difference the only real difference would be resale value. Unless you are in this for the money.. well resale doesnt mean a whole lot. Cheers Drew
  6. Here is a pic Turned out well but in a small room you REALLY have to worry about reflections.
  7. I will get a pic up sometime this week. My 165 doesnt have any problems with the pots jumping. I have a 500K in there now. As mentioned you could go lower but I would be worried about that muddying things up. If I had that problem I would try check the pot on the meter and take notes and make sure it really is a audio taper (if it is stock it probably is). next I would try a decent quality pot (not necessarily a gibson.. CTS and Alpha make usable pots for half the price).
  8. Yeah.. H.E. had a P90 model that he put an HB in... supposedly to cut down on feedback (?)
  9. Yeah.. pickups is pickups.. I swap them out (and pots,) so whatever PUs are in there doesnt make a big diff to me, they will be gone in a few weeks lol. I tried 4 different neck PUs in my telecaster before I found the one. Even then, I have a CCRider I will probably pop in there in the next couple of weeks. The guys in music shops look at me cross-eyed when I DONT want to plug in to try a guitar (even solidbodies). That tells you more about a guitar than the pickups or the amp. The mahogany definitely makes a difference. The EPI 175 is a poor mans gibson ES175 (so is the 165 lol) The ZepReg is NOT a poor mans 165. It really is its own beast. Too bad they discontinued a unique (even among Gibbys) guitar. The ZepRegs will still pop up on ebay/CL so it isnt too late to get one. They made them for almost 10 years. Dont think a 165 is an upgrade from a ZepReg. Like I say.. totally different beast. My main amp is a Princeton Reverb clone. I changed the OT so it would be single ended (4-6 watts, like a champ) but still have reverb. No vibrato yet but someday I will get that working too. EDIT: BTW the 165 is a 96.
  10. my 165 sounds nothing like the ZepReg I played. I am still getting used to it but the 165 is very open bright sounding. If I hadnt sworn off buying new guitars I would grab one. Then pick up a ES125 .. then a beater 70s strat.. And a Marshall Class5 would be nice too. maybe an AC4 w/10"... Ok. I will stop now.
  11. I picked up my ES-165 today!! The gentleman who sold it kindly put DAdd Flat11s on it. They sound better than I expected. Needless to say they are going the garbage tomorrow It has a gibson Classic 57 but I havent really plugged it in yet. (actually, the owner who changed the pickup out left the reciept in the case.. it is a Classic 57 Plus.. never heard of the plus part.. I will have to google) Cheers Drew
  12. I tried a 175 and a ZepReg side by side last year. Might have been that one ZR but I doubt it. VERY WARM and dark sounding. I noticed the Mahogany back and sides. I mentioned it to the guy at the shop.. he shrugged. A 165 now doesnt have a regular humbucker. It has a BJB floating pickup. Anything before 2001 (or 2004.. I dont remember) has a 490R pickup (so even if you find one, unless it has been switched out you still need to pickup a classic 57).
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