"After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

SlowGroove said:
Question for you :


Seeing that you have some of the best PU's in the world in your guitar, how do you think it would have sounded IF you did NOT install the RS Vintage kit ?
(thus keeping the wire'ing stock)


James
Click to expand...

Hey, I'm NOT suggesting for one minute they are any better than what some of our forum bro's could offer, but what I do know is that both of those pick ups... and infact the guitar which is a Page model L.P was nearly offloaded. Those 2 pick ups sounded average at best prior to the new pots etc... that guitar always looked and played GREAT but sounded hard and harsh (by the way, it sounded even worse with Gibson original effort at the Page wiring, that's why it was ripped out!!), and this guitar seems to be very bright anyway. Now it's a different story, it sounds vintage, sweet and smooth. I'm not trying to justify my outlay, if I thought I'd have wasted my money I would have sold the guitar by now. I have a couple of decent guitars, my absolute favorite and number 1 is my '57 R.I Custom. Now both these L.Ps get equal gig time, and I am going to rewire the Custom too because the way the volume pot cleans up now on the std is superb.

I'm sure that if you get the same parts from our bro's here it will have the same effect, all in all I'm very happy with the R.S kit.
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

Hey. I'm a little older than some on this forum, and probably have a few more bucks, so, I have to think what " is it worth it ? " might have meant to me a few - or several - years ago. I have used RS kits ( I get the Old Skool "foil and oil" type caps ), but more recently dropped a boutuque vintage style foil-and-oil type kit from Mojo, complete with trebble bleed mod into a beat up eBay Gibby LP Special. I think it makes a difference, but only moderately so, or a matter of taste. For folks low on cash, I'd say maybe blow it on a fancy dinner for a date instead, or go for the company 401K.
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

$110 for 4 pots, 2 caps, and a little wire??? WTF???

"increase in note bloom, harmonic complexity"? :smack:

Don't forget the special wooden knobs, to give you that warm, natural tone.
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

They're definitely upcharging on the kits, which is the only reason really to sell a wiring "kit", to make a little extra dough.

But if you can source the parts individually, you can get them WAAAAAAAAAY cheaper, totaling somewhere around a third of the RS price, maybe even lower.

So it comes down to whether you want to go to the trouble to find the individual parts on your own. You're not being charged by RS and others for the actual retail value of the parts, you're being charged for the luxury of not having to hunt down all these parts on your own.

So is it worth it? For a newbie to the inside of a guitar or someone in a hurry, it might be. But for someone who knows where to get the parts (and I don't know where to get all of them myself) or is willing to learn, definitely not.

It's the same business philosophy difference between 7-11 and Costco. The RS kit is the convenience store with the upcharge.
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

d1dsj said:
Hey, I'm NOT suggesting for one minute they are any better than what some of our forum bro's could offer, but what I do know is that both of those pick ups... and infact the guitar which is a Page model L.P was nearly offloaded. Those 2 pick ups sounded average at best prior to the new pots etc... that guitar always looked and played GREAT but sounded hard and harsh (by the way, it sounded even worse with Gibson original effort at the Page wiring, that's why it was ripped out!!), and this guitar seems to be very bright anyway. Now it's a different story, it sounds vintage, sweet and smooth. I'm not trying to justify my outlay, if I thought I'd have wasted my money I would have sold the guitar by now. I have a couple of decent guitars, my absolute favorite and number 1 is my '57 R.I Custom. Now both these L.Ps get equal gig time, and I am going to rewire the Custom too because the way the volume pot cleans up now on the std is superb.

I'm sure that if you get the same parts from our bro's here it will have the same effect, all in all I'm very happy with the R.S kit.
Click to expand...


Understood ;)

Thank you very much for your feedback man !


James
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

MVI said:
Hey. I'm a little older than some on this forum, and probably have a few more bucks, so, I have to think what " is it worth it ? " might have meant to me a few - or several - years ago. I have used RS kits ( I get the Old Skool "foil and oil" type caps ), but more recently dropped a boutuque vintage style foil-and-oil type kit from Mojo, complete with trebble bleed mod into a beat up eBay Gibby LP Special. I think it makes a difference, but only moderately so, or a matter of taste. For folks low on cash, I'd say maybe blow it on a fancy dinner for a date instead, or go for the company 401K.
Click to expand...



LOL :D

. . . thanks, but the date can wait ! In fact, i have a fantastic music loving GF that will understand !


James
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

Zhangliqun said:
They're definitely upcharging on the kits, which is the only reason really to sell a wiring "kit", to make a little extra dough.

But if you can source the parts individually, you can get them WAAAAAAAAAY cheaper, totaling somewhere around a third of the RS price, maybe even lower.

So it comes down to whether you want to go to the trouble to find the individual parts on your own. You're not being charged by RS and others for the actual retail value of the parts, you're being charged for the luxury of not having to hunt down all these parts on your own.

So is it worth it? For a newbie to the inside of a guitar or someone in a hurry, it might be. But for someone who knows where to get the parts (and I don't know where to get all of them myself) or is willing to learn, definitely not.

It's the same business philosophy difference between 7-11 and Costco. The RS kit is the convenience store with the upcharge.
Click to expand...


So, where do you shop ?


James
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

I get caps and resistors from Mouser Electronics. Just buy one thing from them and they send you this catalog in the mail that's so big it has to be registered as a weapon in some states. I don't buy a whole lot of pots, so I'm not much of an expert there, but even buying good pots separately from RS or Torres Engineering or other such places seems to be cheaper than buying their kits. I'm sure somebody will chime in on where to get good pots cheaper than that though.
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

Last time I checked I think the up charge on our kits are just a couple bucks over the cost of the individual parts. I think the RS kits with Orange drops are pretty reasonable too if you take into account the special taper pots. If you want boutique capacitors that can really raise the price a lot.

Best plan is to look at all the kits versus individual part cost and I don't think the up charge is really that much.
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

Wymore Guitars said:
Last time I checked I think the up charge on our kits are just a couple bucks over the cost of the individual parts. I think the RS kits with Orange drops are pretty reasonable too if you take into account the special taper pots. If you want boutique capacitors that can really raise the price a lot.
Best plan is to look at all the kits versus individual part cost and I don't think the up charge is really that much.
Click to expand...


Can you tell me a bit more about these "boutique" cap's please !
I am out on a mission to make my first Gibbo sound like a true vintage guitar, albeit very useable !
Thanks.


James
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

First off, if you're going to get pots for a regular SG, then you want the short shaft pots and not the long shaft like the first RS link you posted as they would stick out very far(unless that's the look you're after).

As far as recommending where to get the stuff, I'd look first to any of the dealers on the forum as already suggested. I got my tele wiring kit from martin6strings and it's the only one of my guitars to have a hoveland cap as opposed to an orange drop or stock cap, and I would say even if the effect is minimal that I tend to notice the knobs seem more responsive to smaller turns, and are a bit smoother in sound. That being said, I've only done wiring jobs when necessary and aside from duncans, my SG is still stock and sounds great.
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

JustWendell said:
First off, if you're going to get pots for a regular SG, then you want the short shaft pots and not the long shaft like the first RS link you posted as they would stick out very far(unless that's the look you're after).

As far as recommending where to get the stuff, I'd look first to any of the dealers on the forum as already suggested. I got my tele wiring kit from martin6strings and it's the only one of my guitars to have a hoveland cap as opposed to an orange drop or stock cap, and I would say even if the effect is minimal that I tend to notice the knobs seem more responsive to smaller turns, and are a bit smoother in sound. That being said, I've only done wiring jobs when necessary and aside from duncans, my SG is still stock and sounds great.
Click to expand...

Thanx for pointing that out :D...i noticed only after i posted the link - my bad !

Got any pic's you want to share with us of your SG's ???


James
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

Pots and caps and wires etc do not make a huge difference unless your talking about going from really really poor chinese stuff in a $200 guitar. Provided you've got decent quality stuff, as Fender, Gibson etc does use (I didn't say great, but they work fine) you will not notice a huge difference if any at all.

If I snuck in and swapped an orange drop for a bubblebee you would not notice. If you did notice then I then even EJ would say you need to be medicated LOL.

Then again I'm pretty much a show up, get the tuning close, crank the amp, take a swig of beer and start rocking type of guy more or less so perhaps I'm not one to debate the finer points of wine, cheese, or NOS vintage caps and pots.

CTS pots, orange drops etc work just fine, are 1/5th the price and you can find them anywhere. Past that its totally diminishing returns. For an extra 1% in tone you pay an extra 500% in cost.


Just like guitar cables. Does the stuff that cost $50 a foot sound 10x better than a cable thats $5 a foot ? Not hardly

Yes a quality $30 10' cable sounds worlds better than a $3.99 10' store brand cable but get past that initial quality level and things just don't change much.


It certainly wouldn't hurt to use the RS kit but with all the things in life to spend mone on, $100 for pots and wire sure would be low on my list
 
Re: "After-market wire-kits" - worth it ?

millsart said:
Pots and caps and wires etc do not make a huge difference unless your talking about going from really really poor chinese stuff in a $200 guitar. Provided you've got decent quality stuff, as Fender, Gibson etc does use (I didn't say great, but they work fine) you will not notice a huge difference if any at all.

If I snuck in and swapped an orange drop for a bubblebee you would not notice. If you did notice then I then even EJ would say you need to be medicated LOL.

Then again I'm pretty much a show up, get the tuning close, crank the amp, take a swig of beer and start rocking type of guy more or less so perhaps I'm not one to debate the finer points of wine, cheese, or NOS vintage caps and pots.

CTS pots, orange drops etc work just fine, are 1/5th the price and you can find them anywhere. Past that its totally diminishing returns. For an extra 1% in tone you pay an extra 500% in cost.

Just like guitar cables. Does the stuff that cost $50 a foot sound 10x better than a cable thats $5 a foot ? Not hardly

Yes a quality $30 10' cable sounds worlds better than a $3.99 10' store brand cable but get past that initial quality level and things just don't change much.

It certainly wouldn't hurt to use the RS kit but with all the things in life to spend mone on, $100 for pots and wire sure would be low on my list
Click to expand...


Now THAT is RockN'Roll :headbang:

:firedevil


James
 
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