RS Guitarworks vintage electronics upgrade?

[TeleHawg]

Has anyone installed one of these?

I'm having these installed in two of my Teles: volume and tone pots, capacitors, input jack, wires.

I'll post when I get these back and let y'all know if I hear any difference.

[tazzboy]

I've heard both positive and negative on Gibson upgrade so I really don't know.

[PCR985]

I like them.

I have three sets in Strats.

[Rob DiStefano]

There's been a number of threads about the RS offerings.

IMO, pure snake oil, a waste of money - plus, you can buy the "kit" parts cheaper.

All any passive guitar circuit needs are solid, good components, such as - a CRL or OAK pup switch, CTS or Alpha pots, a Switchcraft jack, and a tone pot capacitor that meets these requirements: whatever initial value that works best for you, as low a tolerance as possible, a reliable build (such as polyester, metal film, mylar, etc). I use Radio Shack metal film 5% .022uf caps - a pair for a buck fifty.

There is NO need for any other "boutique" high dollar cap - save those for real electronic circuits, yer totally wasting yer money. There's nothing else to be said about this guitar circuit cap business.

As to the pot values, pick a value that might work best with your pickups of choice. Any decent pot can have it's value altered to a fair degree, and it can be made no-load for the tone or blender pot. Very easy to do .......

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-tech...d-cts-pot.html

OK, you been ed-u-ma-cated! Twang on!

[AngryEL34s]

Originally Posted by Rob DiStefano

There's been a number of threads about the RS offerings.

IMO, pure snake oil, a waste of money - plus, you can buy the "kit" parts cheaper.

All any passive guitar circuit needs are solid, good components, such as - a CRL or OAK pup switch, CTS or Alpha pots, a Switchcraft jack, and a tone pot capacitor that meets these requirements: whatever initial value that works best for you, as low a tolerance as possible, a reliable build (such as polyester, metal film, mylar, etc). I use Radio Shack metal film 5% .022uf caps - a pair for a buck fifty.

There is NO need for any other "boutique" high dollar cap - save those for real electronic circuits, yer totally wasting yer money. There's nothing else to be said about this guitar circuit cap business.

As to the pot values, pick a value that might work best with your pickups of choice. Any decent pot can have it's value altered to a fair degree, and it can be made no-load for the tone or blender pot. Very easy to do .......

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-tech...d-cts-pot.html

OK, you been ed-u-ma-cated! Twang on!

I agree to a certain extent. I have a drop in kit in my Dot from a competitive producer. It's CTS pots, cloth wire and Bumblebees. It definitely opened up my Dot's sound, but I also didn't pay the retail price for an RS kit. In my SG, I have installed CTS pots and regular Radioshack wire with Sprague caps, and there are similar effects over the stock parts (both these guitars are Epiphones). So, realistically, the RS product will likely be an improvement over your stock parts if the guitar is a more inexpensive model, but RS does charge a hefty premium.

If you don't know the hot end of a soldering iron from Adam, then RS kits are pretty useful, because they reduce the amount of work you need to do, but if you can source pots and other hardware, cloth wire and decent caps for a lower price, go for it.

[TeleHawg]

The consensus from this and other threads seems to be that I've squandered my dough.

Oh, well.

Nevertheless, I'll try to avoid the placebo effect when I get the guitars back and make an objective assessment of the difference -- if any -- in tone.

I don't solder, I'm electronics-impaired, and I guess I'm at the mercy of snake-oil salesmen!

[Chris Leger]

Telehawg,

You've only squandered your dough if you don't like the result with the harness installed.

At retail, there's something like $20 worth of parts in that harness. Pots at about $4 ea, switch at $12. That's what I'd end up paying.

If you could look under my control plates and see the rat's nest of wiring, solder blobs and flux stains that lurk under them, and I told you I'd make you one just like mine for the cost of the parts and a half-hour at $50/hr, and you saw it alongside an RS harness at $60, I'm pretty sure I know which one you'd pick.

The tone cap is (donning flame suit) pure BS, but it's a tone cap - it will work as well as the green poly ones I buy at Radio Shack, so no harm, no foul.

Put yourself in the place of a guy making up these harnesses by hand. It's a labor-intensive job. And the resulting assembly is aimed straight at a consumer like you - doesn't want to solder, electronics impaired, etc. If he builds them with my green caps, and tries to explain to you that the cap is only shunting a portion of signal to ground, so who cares what kind of cap it passes through, and discounts his kits by $5, he's going to get his clock cleaned by the guy making the same assembly with re-branded Jensens for a few dollars more. Same reasoning applies to vinyl stranded wire - may as well use the cloth stuff.

He might as well spend the extra couple of bucks for the Jensens, since he has to charge $60 anyway. And he probably doesn't dine on lobster all that often.

If your guitar has small pots and a PCB switch, this kit is an upgrade. If it already has CTS or Alpha pots and an open switch, you aren't doing any harm, and you'll know you have a nice harness with attractive wiring, etc.

[tazzboy]

If want kit a little less then what RS is charging go to this guy http://www.matchedguitarpots.com/

Or Hoagland Brothers Guitar Company e Bay Store those are both good places.