Prob. going to buy an '82 Silver Star with Bartolinis

http://www.therockinn.com/inventory.cfm?Cat_ID=3&Man_ID=74&Inv_ID=533



They're not going lower than AU$750 (approx US$500). It has Bartolini pickups and sounds fat as HELL. I compared it to another '82 SS, all original and it's nice as well.

One thing I'm not sure about is the way the pickups have been wired. The middle tone knob is bypassed and the other one is apparently being used as a "mid boost", according to the guy. I've never heard of that before, but it's been done deliberately apparently. Also, the other tone knob is wired so it's basically either "on" or "off".

Anyway, it's in really nice condition all round. The action is brilliant, and it plays real nice, real nice indeed. I'm just not sure about the tone knob situation.

Thoughts?

Bit more information from the guy: He can't figure out the Bartolini model but they're single coil active pickups. The functional tone knob is wired to all three pickups for the mid boost, which he says is not uncommon for custom setups.

The other SS is very nice, and all original.



I'm just not sure.

So I bought the sunburst one. I've been playing it through Guitar Rig 3 connected to a soundblaster audigy 2 drive bay and my semi decent Sherwood hifi amp (my guitar amp sounds terrible) - it sounds sweet and plays even sweeter.









The mid gain sounds great through some (simulated) amps and effects and not so great through others. When I can afford a decent real amp I guess I'll have some testing to do.

Congrats, thats a nice looking silver star.... :wink:

Mick

For anyone who's interested, I bought a second hand Vox AD50VT today to go with my recently acquired Silver Star and it is outrageously brilliant.

I have a 100W Peavey Bandit 112 (currently on eBay) which is loud as hell and solid as a rock, but after finally getting a decent guitar I realised just how crap it sounds.

Not to go into it too much (because I don't fully understand it), but the Vox is a pseudo valve amp in that it has a valve in the power amp stage after the amp modeling circuit. This apparently adds a genuine valve tone after the digital stage.

I'm not a valve connoisseur by any means but I would guess I'd have to spend at least triple the money I paid to get a valve amp that sounded better than this. It's worth it just for the first three amp models which are (apparently) based on a Dumble Overdrive, a Fender Reverb and a Fender Bassman respectively. The clean sounds on each, especially the Dumble, are really what I was waiting to hear from my Silver Star.

It also has adjustable power so you can drive the tube hard at low volumes, because 50W is seriously loud. I was expecting a big volume downgrade from the 100W Peavey, but it is every bit as loud and sounds much, much better at high volumes.

So I guess my point is... Vox Valvetronix + Tokai = good times.

...and all for $AU400 (US$260).

Thats some crazy good deal you got there...

Anyway do you know of shops that sells old Japanese guitars at Melbourne? Or webstores that does collection there?

Thanks!

Sorry, I don't.

Hi guys, try this place Kof88 These guys are in Melbourne and have some great guitars. http://www.japanvintageguitars.com/

Cheers...Mick