My new 2020 Love Rock KLS170F LW/SN from Japan

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zbillster

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The dangers of this forum ... browse around, get the itch for another, find one on Reverb, click the button ...



It's the one on the right. :D Bought via Reverb from Kurosawa Music Ochanomizu, whom I can recommend, and shipped to the USA (it spent two weeks in customs jail, but made it out OK to my door). This is the '60s slim neck version (hence SN in the model number) with push/pull coil splits on the volume controls. Cow bone nut, flame maple veneer with maple cap underneath on top mahogany body, Indian rosewood fingerboard, with factory softcase and warranty card with serial numbers and such (I'm gunshy about possible Fakais, so this is a plus). Weighs in at 9 lbs. Transparent blue finish with dark blue finish on the back.

Tweaked the truss rod a bit (came with wrench), dropped the bridge down to get low LOW clean action (thank you, Japan!). Interestingly, the pickups were set up just below the rings, so I raised them to be flush ... if you go higher, they'll hit the strings when you fret the highest notes. Pickups seem to have higher output than my other passive humbucker guitars ... they have a nice sparkle to them.

I really dig it! Time to sell the one on the left ... :wink:

As of this writing, Kurosawa have another one listed on Reverb (blue, slim neck, 2021 manufacture date). I hit the -10% offer button and it worked for me. :lol:
 
Looks like you have the blues.... 8)

Beautiful guitars, both of them. Nice the hear about the newer Tokais. Glad they are still making great guitars and paying attention to set up and details.

Congratulations!
 
Sigmania said:
Looks like you have the blues.... 8)
Click to expand...

I have SO many black and wine red guitars, I'm trying to expand my color palette. :wink:
In that spirit, I also added a Cadillac Green Gretsch (MIJ) and White Eastwood 12-string (MIC) to my harem last year.
Kurosawa also had some of the new '60s necks in sunburst, but unless it's a tobacco burst with really dark edges, they don't do it for me.
 
FordFanJpn said:
Nice! Love the color. Coincidentally, I just bought a KLS170F-LW/SN from Kurosawa.
Click to expand...

Cool! Which color did you get? I noticed those models weren't lasting long on their listings page.
Pretty sure I walked into their shop when I was in Tokyo 8 years ago.
 
zbillster said:
FordFanJpn said:
Nice! Love the color. Coincidentally, I just bought a KLS170F-LW/SN from Kurosawa.
Click to expand...

Cool! Which color did you get? I noticed those models weren't lasting long on their listings page.
Pretty sure I walked into their shop when I was in Tokyo 8 years ago.

EDIT: Never mind ... saw your post! Yeah, those bursts were getting snapped up pretty fast.
Click to expand...
 
You mentioned the pickups being lowered below the rings, mine was like that too. I think it's because the shallower neck angle (3.8º instead of 4.5º) means that the bridge and pickups have to be lower to compensate.
 
FordFanJpn said:
You mentioned the pickups being lowered below the rings, mine was like that too. I think it's because the shallower neck angle (3.8º instead of 4.5º) means that the bridge and pickups have to be lower to compensate.
Click to expand...

(Putting it side by side next to my 2006 Tokai Love Rock MI?) Yep, looks like it! I compared to my other LP-style humbucking guitars, and it kinda varies depending on the dish curve, ring height, etc.

Know Your Gear did a (much too kind) review of a Gibson Custom Shop R0, which looks like it has the same clearance issues ... AND which had several just outright defects, including the inability to lower the action due to the way his sample was assembled (around the 07:30 mark): https://youtu.be/nZqWwuyt-p4

Which, for a $6000 premium guitar, is just outrageous. :roll: I considered investing in one for a hot minute, but they just didn't bowl me over enough to cough up that kind of dough.

I also noticed the Tokai's tone pots have Made in Korea stamped on them, but given that even Fender USA and Gibson are getting parts and electronics from the Far East, is not too concerning. Everything feels and works well.
 
zbillster said:
FordFanJpn said:
You mentioned the pickups being lowered below the rings, mine was like that too. I think it's because the shallower neck angle (3.8º instead of 4.5º) means that the bridge and pickups have to be lower to compensate.
Click to expand...

(Putting it side by side next to my 2006 Tokai Love Rock MI?) Yep, looks like it! I compared to my other LP-style humbucking guitars, and it kinda varies depending on the dish curve, ring height, etc.

Know Your Gear did a (much too kind) review of a Gibson Custom Shop R0, which looks like it has the same clearance issues ... AND which had several just outright defects, including the inability to lower the action due to the way his sample was assembled (around the 07:30 mark): https://youtu.be/nZqWwuyt-p4

Which, for a $6000 premium guitar, is just outrageous. :roll: I considered investing in one for a hot minute, but they just didn't bowl me over enough to cough up that kind of dough.

I also noticed the Tokai's tone pots have Made in Korea stamped on them, but given that even Fender USA and Gibson are getting parts and electronics from the Far East, is not too concerning. Everything feels and works well.
Click to expand...

The neck angle thing is something that Kurosawa makes a point of on their website. The other KLS special features are hide glue, hand-fitted neck joint, special top carve (based on an original 60 Burst that Kurosawa owns), the "slim neck" (also based on the Kurosawa 60 Burst), select "lightweight" mahogany body (although they tend not to be that light), select rosewood fingerboards, and the coil tapped pickups (which I removed). The Korean tone pots are probably fine, but the volume pots on my guitar were unusable. From about 6 to 10 there was no change at all.
 
So far, the pots in mine are better than most of my collection. I have so many Asian guitars with varying degrees of pots quality, I just keep everything at 10 and use a volume pedal. :wink:

Did you have fun taking off the protective clear film? It is REALLY sandwiched on there and hard to peel an edge off to get started! I had to clean some adhesive residue off the chrome pickups ... I thought they were discolored at first.
 
zbillster said:
So far, the pots in mine are better than most of my collection. I have so many Asian guitars with varying degrees of pots quality, I just keep everything at 10 and use a volume pedal. :wink:

Did you have fun taking off the protective clear film? It is REALLY sandwiched on there and hard to peel an edge off to get started! I had to clean some adhesive residue off the chrome pickups ... I thought they were discolored at first.
Click to expand...

I spend a lot of time on the middle position balancing the two volume pots so it's very important for me that they work well.

I guess I was lucky with the protective film. It came off quite easily. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that!
 
FordFanJpn said:
I spend a lot of time on the middle position balancing the two volume pots so it's very important for me that they work well.

I guess I was lucky with the protective film. It came off quite easily. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that!
Click to expand...

Methinks the sunbursts fly off the shelves faster than the blue ones ... mine's a 2020 run, so the clear film had time to hang out in the shop for a while and form a committed relationship with the parts. I haven't gotten around to taking it off the back plates yet ... saving for a day when I have more patience and longer fingernails. :-?

My volume pots may be more sensitive than yours. I'll do a thing where I'll have both pickups on and back the neck off to 8 or 9 to get a little more snarl ... the snarl comes on quick starting at 9.5.

I assume these pickups are "vintage" and thus no wax? I seem to get more harmonics from them.
 
zbillster said:
My volume pots may be more sensitive than yours. I'll do a thing where I'll have both pickups on and back the neck off to 8 or 9 to get a little more snarl ... the snarl comes on quick starting at 9.5.

I assume these pickups are "vintage" and thus no wax? I seem to get more harmonics from them.
Click to expand...

I have the pickups out of my guitar but I can't tell with the covers on if they're potted or not. If I get a chance on the weekend I'll pull off one of the covers and see if they're potted.
 
I popped them open during a string change. Looks like (dark) wax potted, and you can see the neck tenon. I noticed the pickups were off-center in the pickup rings, and on both you can see the metal base with the brackets are off to one side (note more black margin on the right vs. the left). Tried to compensate a bit by bending the mounting legs.

I like the sound of them, so will leave them in for now.

 

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