Brain Fertilizer

So I'm now reconsidering my obsession with Westones.

I was attracted to their low price (relative both to original selling price and other, similarly-equipped 80s guitars), and favorable reviews of Matsumoku-made guitars on Harmony Central, fan sites, and even in the eBay listings.

I admit I made some mistakes, that only 1 of the 3 Westones I bought was original enough to give me a good example of Westone's quality (one was no more than a Westone neck on an unknown body, and the other lacked any of the electronics...maybe I'll be impressed once I install the non-Westone pickups and pots I purchased).

But even the one all-original Westone leaves mixed impressions. It is solid, but so are many guitars. Its sound is no better than average...and from the reviews, I expected a guitar that sounded nearly as good as a Carvin (to date, still the best-sounding guitars I've ever played), and it isn't even close. The pickups seem to be supremely average. Now, the tremolo system seems to be rock solid and always returns to baseline in-tune. And the neck's action is fast, low, and even has slightly wider string spacing, which actually improves playability and string-bending.

Maybe the answer will be to put Carvin pickups into Westone guitars?

But what I wanted was to collect inexpensive guitars that will grow in reputation as a vintage gem passed over by most buyers when they were new. For that, the guitars should be top quality, and the sound they have just doesn't strike me that way.

However, there is a guitar company out there that has some really good, solid, beautiful guitars with decent sound, that no one seems to respect. That would be perfect for my collecting goal. As a result, they are very cheap on eBay, and they don't have a constant presence there like Westone does (Westone usually has 3-8 for sale at any one time, whereas this company has 0-3).

The guitar? J.B. Player.
I already have one. It's a beautiful, transparent cherry sunburst finish, rounded body sides, H/S/S pickup configuration with 24-fret neck, Wilkinson Tremolo and a roller nut.

The pickups were EMG select, which I felt weren't as good as Carvins, so I replaced them last month. It went back into the closet (which is a pain in the arse to get into), so I haven't compared it in sound to the Westones. It does have a fret-buzz problem on the 21st fret on the high E string only...I've been toying with either replacing the frets myself, raising the action slightly, or taking it to a professional for fret re-dressing...for now I'll just deal with it. The Carvin M22SD I put in the bridge position may be *too* hot, as I remember it...but it doesn't seem so bad now, in comparison to the Westones, because it just has a little extra noise on the Classic setting of my amp, as opposed to sounding completely crappy on that setting (at any level of distortion or volume) like the Westones do.

So what this is leading to is, I found a J.B. Player on eBay with about 6 hours to go, selling for a ridiculously low price of $50 combined (price + shipping). I put in my $.02 (actually $40 worth, but you know what I mean) and held the bid for an hour before being out-bid. After thinking about it, I eventually decided I'd be upset if anyone else got it for less than $100 combined, so that was my bid. And I won it for exactly that.

Here's the guitar:

If the action is bad, or the sound crappy, I'll regret it immensely.

But from looking alone, it looks like good quality wood, a decent paint job, non-twisted neck. I don't know what quality the pickups are, but the configuration should produce good sonic choices, and the stop tailpiece should help provide good sustain. If necessary, I'll drop in Carvin pickups, and change the tone/volume pots to push/pull coil taps at the same time, and should have a great sounding, great playing guitar...again, assuming the neck doesn't have any problems.

Maybe I'll start collecting J.B. Players instead of Westones.

Wish me luck.