stratman323 said:JVsearch said:.....main reason it's good is because it makes the string break angle shallower (like a top loading Tele bridge does also) and you will get a more musical tone in my opinion.
That is a very contentious statement! Top loading Tele bridges are generally the preserve of cheapo Teles. Fender gave them up after less than a year.
I don't actually know why Fender gave up on them, maybe it was for some other reason (don't want two different lines of construction for one model) rather than that they sounded no good or were cheap. They did away with the single pickup Esquire as well - too costly to make two different pick guards! Ha ha
People just don't like them because they look a bit like they could be pulled off, whereas the string through body method looks rock solid. To be fair a top loader probably should not be used on softer woods, so maybe that was the problem, longevity fears meant you had to use the harder timber.
Top loaders are making a bit of a comeback here and there, and a top loader was good enough for Jimmy Page before he became immortalised as a LP player. He even used his top loader Tele to record the solo to Stairway, and nobody would say that was a bad tone? Yeah, I know, unfair - Pagey would have sounded good on whatever it was.
When it comes down to it, I just can't stand bright no sustain chickin pickin Tele sounds, and the top loader seems to allow notes to bloom a bit more. I put it down to the string break angle, but I could be wrong.