elitist broadway

[plasticpigeon]

Hello Epiphans I am new to the forum, but have joined as I have just bought a Broadway Elitist. It is a spectacularly beautiful guitar, with fantastic sounding pickups, but there are a few issues with it. The main is that I find the acoustic sound very tight sounding, it doesn't have that big deep hollow body sound that some archtops have. I have a samick jz guitar (that admittedly is modified a bit with a superior 2 foot rosewood bridge) which also has 2 routed out pickups but has a much fuller sound. What do other owners think.

 

I was also disappointed by the fit of the parts, particularly the pickups, as the mounting holes for the pickup surrounds are not centred with the route outs meaning that on the right hand side and top edge of both pickups the metal pickup casing is hard against the wood of the soundboard which causes a lot of acoustic buzzing. I have started to gingerly open up the route outs a small amount with a file but obviously want to remove the minimum amount or material possible. At the mo the neck pickup doesn't rattle anymore but the bridge one still does. Also the pickguard was badly fitted and bent because of the mounting bracket being at a funny angle and the top screw hole on the body being fractionally higher than it should be. I have had to set up and generally finish off every guitar I have ever owned, and all these issues can be rectified reasonably easily but I was surprised to find such flaws on an instrument as high end as an elitist. Has anyone else had similar experiences or did I just get a friday afternoon guitar, or am I just crazy fussy???

[carverman]

Hello Epiphans I am new to the forum' date=' but have joined as I have just bought a Broadway Elitist. It is a spectacularly beautiful guitar, with fantastic sounding pickups, but there are a few issues with it. The main is that I find the acoustic sound very tight sounding, it doesn't have that big deep hollow body sound that some archtops have. I have a samick jz guitar (that admittedly is modified a bit with a [b']superior 2 foot rosewood bridge[/b]) which also has 2 routed out pickups but has a much fuller sound. What do other owners think.

 

a two foot rosewood bridge?..how is that possible, unless you mean the base has these so called

"violin style foot pads" with a small air gap in the middle for a better fit ?

Well, comparatively speaking both acoustically and electrically, the Samick made "jz guitar"

and the Terada made Broadway will sound different. One has a formed plywood top,while the other should

be a solid spruce carved top.

 

 

I was also disappointed by the fit of the parts, particularly the pickups, as the mounting holes for the pickup

surrounds are not centred with the route outs meaning that on the right hand side and top edge of both pickups the metal pickup casing is hard against the wood of the soundboard which causes a lot of acoustic buzzing.

 

You mean that the edge of the pickups is rubbing against the top on one side? That is unusal,

as normally the p_ups float within the cutouts. Something must be "offcenter".

Have you checked to see if the tail piece is centered dead center or off to the side a bit?

 

I have started to gingerly open up the route outs a small amount with a file but obviously want to remove the minimum amount or material possible.

Normally the routed holes should be large enough with enough gaps around that the humbuckers don't rub

againstg anything. Somebody has apparently misaligned..are the screw holes for the rings in the original places

or moved slightly? Maybe somebody tried to align the adjusting screws with the string spread on the bridge?

 

Also the pickguard was badly fitted and bent because of the mounting bracket being at a funny angle and the top screw hole on the body being fractionally higher than it should be. I have had to set up and generally finish off every guitar I have ever owned, and all these issues can be rectified reasonably easily but I was surprised to find such flaws on an instrument as high end as an elitist. Has anyone else had similar experiences or did I just get a friday afternoon guitar, or am I just crazy fussy???

 

Well, I'm not surprised. I had to do a lot of rework on mine, but then again, it was a

stamped "used" by Epiphone, sold as a asset disposal to some online dealer.

It was a "stray" and I decided to take it in and give it a good home. The "defects"

you are talking about are minor. how do you like the sound?

[plasticpigeon]

I'm glade you resurrected your broadway. Do you know why yours was a 2nd??? Do you have pictures??

 

The electric sound is everything I hoped for, but the acoustic sound is a bit dead. I don't know about yours but mine does not have a carved top. It has a pressed piece of spruce maybe 4 -5 mm thick, with 2 very thin laminates on the underside, presumably there to hold the arch in shape, so it is sort of a laminate with 1 laminate being very thick. The samick is spruce ply as you have said.

 

Yes the bridge I put on the samick is one with 2 feet and a gap in the middle, similar to the old Gibson bridges used on their archtops until the end of the 60s. I plan to make one for the broadway too to see if it has an effect.

 

The pickups and tailpiece seem perfectly centred with respect to the neck and body, I think the routing for the pickups is about 1mm to 1.5 mm too far to the right and bottom of the guitar, not a lot but enough to cause a problem.

[carverman]

I'm glade you resurrected your broadway. Do you know why yours was a 2nd???

It has (or had) a small crack around the bridge tone control that was expertly repaired before I bought it.

 

Do you have pictures??

[

here it is (slightly customized with my own homemade tp)..I didn't like the frequensator on it and it's almost

impossible to get an L4/L5 tailpiece on the internet..without paying an arm and a leg for them.

I also changed the knobs and the caps from the green chicklets to orange drops.

 

 

The electric sound is everything I hoped for' date=' but the acoustic sound is a bit dead. [/quote']

 

The elitist is supposed to have the USA hbuckers 50SR/50ST, although I'm not sure if those are

equivalent to the Classic 57 or not..they sound ok for this type of guitar.

 

I don't know about yours but mine does not have a carved top. It has a pressed piece of spruce maybe 4 -5 mm thick, with 2 very thin laminates on the underside, presumably there to hold the arch in shape, so it is sort of a laminate with 1 laminate being very thick.

 

Well that is the advertised machine carved top...you expected a Gibson L5 machine/hand carved and tapped top for

that kind of money these days? The original Epiphone Broadway did have a hand carved/tapped topped similar

to the process that Gibson were using and at least in the 60s, the Gibson made Broadways did have carved tops.

I noticed the thin pieces of ply as well, and assumed it was just a thin protective ply glued in to the carved spruce

to keep it from cracking. Did you use a dental mirror through a pickup opening to view the underside of the top?

 

Yes the bridge I put on the samick is one with 2 feet and a gap in the middle, similar to the old Gibson bridges used on their archtops until the end of the 60s. I plan to make one for the broadway too to see if it has an effect.

 

Epi took off the inlaid bridge off mine, all the elitist trappings including the pickguard,tuners, t-o-m bridge and the trc

with elitist engraved on it. They then stamped out the production number on the back

of the headstock, and scratched out the sn on the tag inside. They stamped "used"

on the back of the headstock..very brutal, but that's the way they do business.

You wouldn't expect to see an L5 subjected to this kind of treatment,

Either they or the dealer that sold it to me fixed the crack.

 

The pickups and tailpiece seem perfectly centred with respect to the neck and body, I think the routing for the pickups is about 1mm to 1.5 mm too far to the right and bottom of the guitar, not a lot but enough to cause a problem.

 

 

Unusual for an Elitist (if yours is an Elistist?) but if the tp is centered, no big deal to enlarge the openings

a bit more. The openings are huge, so a couple more mm one way is not going to make any difference to

the acoustic sound.

[plasticpigeon]

yes it's definitely an elistist

 

 

that is an interesting tailpiece on yours, did you make it. Is it machined or cast???

 

Here is the samick, it has an L5 style tailpiece from a washburn J6. It looks nice but is not good enough to go on the epiphone I don't think.

 

[carverman]

yes it's definitely an elistist

Yes' date=' it certainly is. The reason I asked, before you posted the pic of it, was that there were some regular

Broadways (VS) available for a while. Forget who made those...wasn't Samick, and I bid on one, but somebody

came in at the last few seconds and outbid me. The elitist second, I just went for the BIN since I always wanted

one since they were available in the 60s by Gibson..I almost ordered one then, but ended up getting an acoustic

Triumph which I then electrified and not in a manner that would be beneficial towards retaining it's vintage value..

but parts were hard to find back then..there wasn't a huge aftermarket of Gibson parts then, like there is now.

I tried to get some humbuckers from Gibson and then and the response was that they didn't

have enough for their own production then and unless I sent back a defective humbucker, they were not

willing to sell me any, so I ended up with SC DeArmond 2000..which actually had a nice sound on the

acoustic Triumph.

 

that is an interesting tailpiece on yours, did you make it. Is it machined or cast???

I made it myself out of heavy copper stock and then had it goldplated, but the gold plating

was not that good, so it has the vintage tarnished look now. It has no hinge, just bent

at the end. I was trying to come up with a vintage look to it.

 

Here is the samick, it has an L5 style tailpiece from a washburn J6. It looks nice but is not good enough to go on the epiphone I don't think.

 

Well, if it was me, I would put the L5 tp on the Broadway and get a GFS jazz style tp for the Samick.

The "new" Broadway is basically a version of the L5. The original Epi Broadway was

a bit different, it had originally American Walnut back and sides which later on became

curly maple. In 1951, the peghead inlay was changed from the vine motif to the large

single flower (rose) with a trailing stem and leaves with a white plastic truss rod cover.

[it was available from NYC (for a while..maybe a year or two) until they came out with the

electric version and changed the headstock emblem again and that remained until bought

out by Gibson in 57.

Here is a picture of it..don't know how many were made, or where any are now...

these were very scarce to begin with.

 

 

The electrified 1954 looked like this.

 

http://home.provide.net/~cfh/epiphon2.html#broad

 

and what looks to be the remaining NYC parts on a 1959 Broadway, note the location

of the switch and the use of the "trophy" MOP emblem used on Broadway/Triumph.

 

http://www.grouseguitars.com.au/sold/epiphone.htm

 

Of course, later on when Gibson took over, the Broadway became closer to a L5

at some point, with the dimensions resembling an L5 more than a Triumph and the

switch located in the cutaway.

[LongMan]

The electric sound is everything I hoped for' date=' but the acoustic sound is a bit dead.[/quote']

 

Same is true for the standard Broadway. I was a bit surprised that a guitar of that size and volume has that poor acoustic sound. Even the smaller Emperor Swingster is somewhat louder acoustically, or at least more present in the deeper frequencies.

 

But I don't mind the acoustic sound too much, as I intended to play it amplified anyway. And amplified it sounds just great, and shows the deepness and dynamic it misses without amplification.

 

Here's a nice example what one can get out even of a standard Broadway (I guess the Elitist would do even better):

 

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