Vintage Gibson Aluminum Tailpiece Comparison to Modern Replicas

PLEASE READ HERE: This video is the first of its kind. The video was shot with the on-camera microphone and amp settings at high treble to show how the six vintage tailpieces stack up against two modern replicas. I do unplugged first, using a Gibson Classic 2000 with all vintage hardware, and brand new strings for each tailpiece swap. Then amp demos, with a vintage simple Garnet amp, treble on 10, middle on 10, bass on 2. NO pedals, no gain channel, no master volume, just a guitar cord and some reverb, and turned up to 10. You can click quickly at different points in the timeline to best hear the differences. I apologize for all the noodling, but I did cut out alot of it to try to keep this short. Editing takes forever..... The bottom line in what I am hearing is that the vintage tailpieces are PERFECT. They hit in the middle of everything and beat the two replicas hands down. Now that you have this video to watch, when you buy an aluminum tailpiece replica from one of the companies hyping how authentic their hardware is, bounce theirs off a plywood table top like mine, and I doubt you are going to hear the SAME treble notes. I don't think these old hardware pieces CAN be copied. The GOTOH, I found to be rather dull sounding, not much sparkle like the original vintage piece; the Kluson was just the opposite, brighter than the originals. The Klusons are what I use in my Les Pauls. Even before this research video, I didn't like the GOTOH's and replaced the ones on two Les Pauls. So, in the end, ALL the vintage hardware parts, the ABR1, the aluminum tailpiece, the tailpiece bolts, the brass thumbwheels, the brass bridge posts (vintage LP had no steel anchors for the bridge, cheap Gibsons are putting steel anchors in there, and they sound bad to me)......vintage hardware just sounds incredibly BETTER than any hardware anyone is making. The Faber ABRH, though, is quite close to vintage, but is a bit more bassy than originals. The other hardware pieces do have close sounding versions that I have sourced, they are cheap and sound very close to originals. Gibson doesn't use any accurate hardware materials in any of their guitars, except they finally used brass wheels and posts on their "True Historic" guitars. Message me and I'll send you a list of them. Enjoy the video, Dave Stephens Find me on Facebook=Stephens Design Pickups, where I post much more than you'll see here on Youtube.