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While the guitars do sound a little different in the video, I would bet they sound very different live, whether playing them or sitting in front of them. The digital compression removes some important tonal characteristics. Listen to the same track on your home stereo with a) an LP, b) a CD and c) an mp3. You lose some tone going digital and you lose a LOT of tone once it is compressed.
These listening tests online are fun, but are not at all dispositive of the question of guitar tone. Only a hands on test can answer the question of which guitar sounds best to the player.
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10-18-2017 12:45 PM
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Lawson,
I think I hear my old baby in #3
And I think I hear a little fret buzzing in #2
After relistening to this on my iPad, I think I had it wrong.
So my guess is:
1. Figured
2. VOS
3. 165
If I am wrong, you have to send them all to me so I can relearn how they sound..
L,J
PS, great playing.
PSS, HAHAHAHAHALast edited by Max405; 10-19-2017 at 03:53 PM.
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Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Just take an album that you are really, truly familiar with and listen to it on a digital service--e.g., Spotify, iTunes, etc. That album will sound sadly different, I promise you. For general applications it won't be a deal killer--I am not going to stop listening to digital media in my car, for example. Nor, would I go back to 8-track or "Phillips" cassette tapes. (Look it up) It's just that as Stringswinger notes, you DO lose a lot in the compression algorithm on YouTube and other services. It cannot be helped.
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I agree with Stringswinger and Greentone regarding the possible loss of subtleties due to modern recording techniques.
I couldn't hear any really significant difference between the guitars which was very odd given that I thought I would be able to spot the 165 immediately even though I have never played a 59 VOS or 2016 model. If I remember correctly, Lawson's 165 still has the original 490R pickup and that alone should have singled it out from the other two. When I swapped the 490R for a Classic '57 in my 165 it changed the guitar into a darker, thicker toned instrument. This was no doubt due to a combination of the heavier 90's construction and the pickup's characteristics.
From all this I can only assume that Lawson's two 175's sound nearly identical to an unmolested 90's 165. There is also the possibility that all guitars sound more or less the same when plugged into a Polytone and what we are hearing is the tone of the amp more than that of the guitar. I have sometimes had difficulty distinguishing between my 345 and 165 on recordings using my Megabrute and they are very different guitars.
The 490r is a fairly lively bright sounding pickup and for this reason alone I would imagine that the 165 is number 2. I'm not even going to hazard a guess what 1 and 3 are.
Very nicely played Lawson. Well done.Last edited by stoneground; 10-19-2017 at 04:01 PM. Reason: typo
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Lawson, Come on man.. You are killing us..
Which one is which?
Joe D
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My experience with the VOS and the non-VOS ES-175 has been that they are distinct instruments. The ES-165 (and the single PU 175 of yore) also has a distinct tonality.
As Stringswinger points out, this might get blurred some by the realities of compression losses on digital importation to YouTube.
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Here is the big reveal!
BTW it was mentioned that by using a Polytone, I'd chosen an amp with a very distinctive tone profile that might well have obscured the distinctive qualities of each guitar.
I think that is a very astute observation, so I did a similar comparison using the DVMark Micro50 head and the VOS, "Figured," and Epiphone ES175. If there is interested, I could post that one as well since it changes out the amp variable. I couldn't do the ES165 for this one because it's at home and I shoot the video at my office.
But here's the reveal. Everyone will have something to be happy about, and everyone will have something to be surprised about!
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Well, No.2 just sounds richer, woodier, more expressive, besides louder. Articulate and alive.
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What year is the VOS?
How many guitars and amps have you owned?
Today, 11:04 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos