Part IX: new Schaller ST6K Kluson copies for the LS120
I thought I should add this here, because I recorded two more clips of Alright Now ("Jeezz..."

) with my LS120, one with the old Schaller M6 tuners that the first owner had installed before I bought it from him in 1985, and one with the new nickel plated Schaller ST6K Kluson copies I got a few days ago from
Rockinger in Germany for ? 35.00.
As a start some pictures which I found on the web, the first one is from Rockinger's site, but mine look exactly like the picture from Audiofanzine, i.e. they are a little bit "aged" to a faint green, but not as much as the greenish tuners on some of the MIK Tokai Love Rocks.


And here's how the headstock looked with the M6 installed:
So one reason for buying the Kluson copies was that those ugly screw holes in the back would be used again, although it now has the holes from the M6 tuners of course, but they don't look as mean... Furthermore I always liked Kluson tuners better than any metal types, and the double rings are a nice bonus, too. And it was important that the new Schallers were made for 10mm shafts as well, since the first owner had to manually widen the boreholes with a file.
The ST6K have a 16:1 gear ratio while the M6 use 14:1, so they offer a smoother and more controlled feeling when tuning the strings with harmonic overtones. They also feel great, not like plastic at all and as if they had been installed since 1981, i.e. with a "well-known" grip.
But the main reason for changing the tuners was that I was curious if and how their much smaller weight would influence the sound of the guitar. I needed a new set of tuners for my Luxor 335 copy anyhow, so there was no risk of wasting any money. The ST6K have a weight of 180g while the M6 weigh 260g, so that's almost 50% less which is already noticable when picking up the guitar or moving it around while holding it.
I used slightly different settings on my Boogie, because I had changed the power tubes to NOS Philips/Sylvania (blue label) in the meantime which sound fuller and smoother than the Russian 6L6 copies I used during the pickup comparison. The Thiele cab with EVM-12L speaker was connected to the "correct" 8 ohm output as well, not to the 4 ohm jack as before. Volume 1 was on 7 this time, Treble and Middle on 7, Bass on 3, Lead Drive on 6, Lead Master on ~0.8 and Presence on 4. The omnidirectional mic had the same position pointing towards the ceiling.
I didn't change anything between the two recordings, but waited one day for the guitar to recover from the total release of tension. In my experience it always takes at least a few hours for any guitar to sound similar after changing all strings etc.
A small problem occured with the recording of the new tuners, because the guitar was louder than before, so it distorted the line input channel a little bit, since the first recording was leveled with not much headroom. I decided to leave the spikes in there and not use another recording with a lower input setting, because that would alter the sound too much, and you wouldn't know what the cause for the difference was.
So here they are:
http://home.arcor.de/hans-juergen.barde ... ghtnow.mp3
http://home.arcor.de/hans-juergen.barde ... ghtnow.mp3
I should also mention that I played the riff a little bit different from the clips during the pickup comparison, because I use my pinky now on the 5th fret of the D string creating an g-a interval. The pickup still is the Gibson P-94 single coil at the bridge, so it might also be interesting to compare these new clips to the old one with that pickup:
http://home.arcor.de/hans-juergen.barde ... chords.mp3
