Archtop Guitars Mega Review - 11 fine Jazz Boxes

[makam]

This the final version of the Archtop Guitar Mega Review, completed with the addition of four fine jazz boxes.
Two Gibsons, one L4, one L5, one D'Angelico EXL 1DP from Korea and one European made Hofner New President Vintage, all puted together in a continuation of the previous Eastman and Heritage Hollow Body Guitar review.
For those who have missed it, now I have include all the Youtube videos here.

I tried to put together some archtop guitars in an as much more objective presentation.

The sound captured professionally, not from the camera mic and the recording have done at the same time, with all the guitars loaded with flatwound 0,12 strings, using the same pick and the same amplifier settings.

There is no audio editing here, just a little reverb from the amp, so to have a real and clear view about this exceptional archtops.

Stay tuned and subscribe as more video's will follow.

Hope you enjoy...

Makis


Heritage Super Eagle

Heritage Golden Eagle with floatin' pickup

Heritage Golden Eagle with a built in humbucker

Heritage Sweet Sixteen with floatin' pickup

Heritage H 550

Eastman AR 910 CE

Eastman AR 805 CE

D'Angelico EXL1-DP

Hofner New President Vintage

Gibson L4 CES

[makam]

Plus one more, as the system allows only ten video's per post...

Gibson L5 CES - Wes Montgomery

[jazzbow]

Oo!

[Bezoeker]

Lots of fun to listen to these. I suppose it is not exactly a scientific test, but great-sounding playing there. Many thanks for all this effort.

Do others note that the 16" 805CE sounds great compared to the 17" 910?

BZ

[Spook410]

OK.. that was fun. Would be interesting to hear an acoustic recording of each since the pickup contributes so much to the sound of these. Biggest surprise for me was how good the Heritage Eagle with the floater sounded with .012 flats.

[Frank67]

Wonderful - thanks for sharing!


my favorites are: Gibson Wesmo about as well as Heritage Golden eagle with inset pub, a bit nicer than the Heritage sweet 16 which I liked incrementally better than the Gibson l4 - but all of those sounded great! All of those 4 guitars I liked better than the Eastmans (both of which I found a bit bland), the d'Angelico and the Höfner. I also preferred the Golden Eagle with inset pub over the floater ... But I kind of knew that I would. However, give another player all of those guitars playing the same tune and I bet I would have heard much more the difference of the players than the subtle differences coming from the guitars.

Thanks again and merry christmas to all of you!

[helios]

Everyone loves an Archtop mega-review, especially one (as this) with great playing! The Super Eagle is the Secretariat of this group to me. The demo confirms my belief that floaters are a tad too bright to my ears, but I honestly wouldn't fuss about having any of these very decent instruments. Thanks for the comparison study! Jeff

[mr. beaumont]

Not a bad tone in the bunch, but this is more evidence of what I have already thought...to my ears, a set humbucker beats a floater every time...

i think my fave was the L4.

[dmorash]

Glad to see my weapon of choice (L4CES) included in this along with a couple that I'm drooling over (Golden Eagle and of course L5CES). I too prefer set in humbuckers over floating pickups. Fun to listen to all these - thanks for sharing it.

[marcwhy]

Great playing; a fun review of some beautiful instruments. Thanks!

[StevieB]

Enjoyed them all - thanks for posting!

Super Eagle followed by the L4 for me.

[Philco]

Remarkable how different the L4 sounds. Talk about a sonic signature.

One other observation.....
This confirms the brightness of floating pups for me.
So that's where Benson gets that brightness from. The Johnny Smith sounds similar in the top end.

Don't be put off by that brightness. You can't dial that in. But you can dial it out a little.
And you can use that brightness for the attack of the notes. All the other guitars are bereft of it.

Now I don't particularly like that sound of the floater on this particular video (and thanks Makam for going to all that effort to show us) BUT I can see a use for it.

RP will support my theory on this I think.

[Woody Sound]

Biggest surprise for me was how good the Heritage Eagle with the floater sounded with .012 flats.

Why?

[mr. beaumont]

It's not just brightness though...there's a "brittle" sound to some floaters, like the Eastman in particular, that is very different.

Honestly, there's only a handful of players out there who use floating pickups who get a truly great tone imho...Benson is definitely one of them.

[Engine Swap]

Lots of fun to listen to these. I suppose it is not exactly a scientific test, but great-sounding playing there. Many thanks for all this effort.

Screw science - this is great!

excellent playing - thanks!

[rpguitar]

Yeah I'm all over the floater sound with the right guitar, pickup, amp, setup, and... Most importantly... touch. And this is from a person who also dearly grooves on the PAF sound. Admittedly, those are a lot of variables to manage. I've also had a number of disappointing floater axes. I think it's generally easier and more predictable to get a familiar, pleasing jazz tone from a PAF. But the PAF cannot get the hard attack, woody floater sound no matter what you do. Both are expressive voices and I really can't see missing either one from my palette.

[NSJ]

It's not just brightness though...there's a "brittle" sound to some floaters, like the Eastman in particular, that is very different.

Honestly, there's only a handful of players out there who use floating pickups who get a truly great tone imho...Benson is definitely one of them.

My vote for most beautiful guitar tone is Johnny Smith, but I don't think if his pup as much as incredible technique .

The L4 sounds most like the most electric guitar of the bunch. Like a 175.

[Philco]

It's not just brightness though...there's a "brittle" sound to some floaters, like the Eastman in particular, that is very different.

Honestly, there's only a handful of players out there who use floating pickups who get a truly great tone imho...Benson is definitely one of them.

I hear you.
It reminds me of the time when EMG pups came on to the market and all the rockers were replacing their humbuckers with these battery driven creatures. They had so much brittle top end they could poke your eyes out.

Pretty soon there was a whole bunch of second hand EMG's on the market. Nasty.

But you can back that top end off on a floater. I think everyone runs away from them but Mr Benson was onto something, as was Johnny Smith. They knew how to tame the beast.

Just to confuse the issue (and hopefully not to derail the thread) here is a floater without the ping in the top.
Start at 1.49

oh and.............how's the feel!!!!

[Frank67]

I am normally also all for set in pubs over floaters to get that fat, warm, meaty tone that so many of us like. However, the floater in the Ibanez GB10 sounds just great IMHO. This very peculiar design gives a big warm tone with fast attack.

interesting also that the opinions on the super eagle were varying. To me it lacked a bit definition compared to the golden eagle or the Wesmo.

But overall I agree with Mr Beaumont that there isn't a bad tone in the bunch (... And once a band is cooking the small differences all get lost anyways ...)

thanks again for the effort to make this available!

[AlohaJoe]

Thanks for posting those! I don't get to try out a lot of guitars so this is very cool.

The differences are subtle. They all sounded good (and in capable hands), but I have to give the edge to the Super Eagle for my taste. It's fat, warm, balanced and everything I love to hear. The Sweet 16 also sounded really nice, more midrangey than the deeper bodies but nicely balanced and crisp. If I was trying to cut through a band I'd take the 16.

I also usually prefer a set pup, but... it depends on the guitar. Since a floater is the only logical option for a vintage box I put a KA floater on my old Triumph and on a full-depth 17 3/8" body it sounds superb.

[AlainJazz]

Thank-you for this very very cool idea. I really enjoyed watching the videos. For me, it's a toss up between the two gibsons but really it is so subjective because they all sound great. Are all of these your guitars?

[kris]

It's not just brightness though...there's a "brittle" sound to some floaters, like the Eastman in particular, that is very different.

Honestly, there's only a handful of players out there who use floating pickups who get a truly great tone imho...Benson is definitely one of them.

Jesse van Ruller,Peter Bernstein...floaters players...:-)

[feet]

Not a bad tone in the bunch, but this is more evidence of what I have already thought...to my ears, a set humbucker beats a floater every time...

this sort of sums up my approach to this kind of tone. though i didn't listen to all of them yet, i did some a/b'ing with the ones i was most curious about. i'm preferring the l5 at the moment. i was pleasantly surprised by how well the h550 kept up. that has a center block, right?

while i understand the point of this exercise (and i'm grateful ) i'm a little hesitant to pass too much judgement, without knowing more about the amp and strings and conditions. i'm sure some of the guitars i didn't like can be massaged into something more me, and i can certainly make a great guitar sound like crap, as well.

[3625]

Great job Makam - very well done and informative.

For what I like it was the Gibsons' - no question.

Re: fixed vs. floater - in order to make up my mind on that I'm thinking I'd need to hear Makam play a couple of Gibson floaters (why stop at 11?) Also what kind of floater pickup needs to be debated, because I imagine there's a big difference between a more modern one like a Benedetto and a traditional JS type.

For a relatively inexpensive guitar I was impressed with the D'A - there was nothing I didn't like about the tone (didn't sound harsh or overly bright etc.) though you could hear how the higher end guitars had a more complex tone with more personality.

Dug it, thanks.

[Frank67]

True, the 550 was surpringly good ... But I forgot the mention that I also liked the sweet 16 a lot - even a bit better than the L4 - nice to know ... Someday ... Maybe ... :-)