mikef

Of course I meant A95U not 85U

I think the A85U is the same as the Gibson one ?? I get plenty of gain from the garphic equaliser so that's not a problem. Just concerned that even with the controls set flat the box is colouring the sound from the guitar before hitting the (valve) amp. And another thing.................when using the internal transformer to output Hi Z, both the treble and bass controls act as volume controls. Either is capable of reducing the volume to almost zero. This does not happen in Low Z mode. Does this happen with the real Gibson ones ??

Instead of using a step up transformer like the shure or the gibson one, I use transistor graphic equaliser to boost the LOW Z signal before entering the amp. I set the equaliser flat so as not to colour the output from the guitar and I figure this should all be OK since many players will be going into a solid state amp anyway even if they are using the step up transformer. Anybody have any views/experience to share on this ?.......thanks

One thing's for sure; you can get an authentic Les Paul Mary Ford sound out of it. With the right settings, the intro to "How High the Moon" sounds exactly like the record. A jolly sight better than Jeff Beck's effort anyway. Actually I wonder if Les did actually use an LPR on that or a "stock" LP ?????

Since I got it from a backroom I have no knowledge about how it came from the factory but I have not modded it at all. From all the info on the web it seems they were a direct copy and thus low Z. All the internet pics show the control plate and it always has a Lo Hi switch. No point to that unless it is indeed to switch from Lo to Hi. During refurbishment I found no evidence of pickups or control plate being replacements. I need to find a way to take pics less than 500K file size to post more photos. Actually I see that I have used 312K of my 500K global upload quota. How do I go about resetting and/or increasing my quota. (I am running windows7)

The pickups are low Z for sure. I measured the simple resistance at about 14 Ohms (either pickup), 9 Ohms (both pickups) with the switch at Lo and about 6K Ohms on Hi. So very low indeed.

This will probably get me lynched but what do you think about the Ibanez LPR copies? This one is of such a high quality that decades ago I declined to trade it for a real (Gibson) one after playing them both for a couple of hours in the same shop I found the Ibanez. It was in the broken and abandoned back room so I got it for just a few English pounds. Took me a while to restore it but as you can see it's perfect now. I made a pick guard out of perspex (plexiglass) using a LPR picture as a template and the tremolo arm is a strange bigsby alike I found in a junk shop. All the controls seem to do what they should and the sounds are spot on EXCEPT.. 1) The phase switch is wired wrongly so that "in" is "out" and vice versa 2) THE BIG SURPRISE is that the decade "switch" has ONLY 3 POSITIONS. All very noticeably different. This seems to match the comments I see about the 11 postion decade on the real ones. Anyone know anything about this? Seems like Ibanez found the same thing and made a mod ?? Just so you know, I am a Gibson fan through and through. My 1962 mint ES175D is the love of my life. Mike F