Product: B-Band A3.2
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
02/08/2009
at
07:55am
by
Craig R
Email: craig at abscomputersouthbay<dot>com
Features
:
"Superior sounding Emfit film pickups", this is not your regular piezo saddle pickup. It is a "exclusive patented pickup material". THe first time I heard it, I new I liked it much better than the piezo in my high end ovation.
This is a single pick up system, under the saddle, like a piezo
Instrument
:
Original equipment in a Washburn D52SWCE, but I would put one in an acoustic guitar for sure. I am sure there new system with 2 separate pick ups in different spots on the guitar, is more natural - and will pick up more sounds from the top of the guitar, which will benefit me, cause I do an in sync off on mute with my strumming forearm sometimes, and I see guys knock on there guitar for percussive effect, and that doesn't get picked up much either (unless I do it real close to the bridge).
Sound
:
10
Nice strong clear high output.
To write this review, I plugged it into a old Radio shack Stereo Amplifier, into an Eminence Liberty 12" guitar speaker in a good DW birch plywood tolex covered semi-open backcab. Very balanced, although the highs are not all here, cause there is no horn (and my ears are toasted on the upper freqs also). I set its 4 eq knobs to 12 o'clock Bass, 12 mid, 1 treble, 3 presence, and it sounds very much like a giant Washburn D52SWCE, pretty amazing! ---OK - I went and hooked up a very nice Yamaha PA speaker with a 10" EV Force flat wound driver & a great non-piezo compression driver with the L-pad set to the middle and WOW! I set the bass eq knob to 1 o'clock too. Now the highs are all here too, I can tell even the highs I can barly hear cause my ears give me their "warning pain" - but mildly , when I crank the presence.
I have spent years trying to find good, easy, low feedback NATURAL acoustic tone, and this does it so well. I give it a 10, considering this was from around 2004. Probably the new models will deserve an 11 or 12...
Overall Rating
:
9
The only thing kinda cheesy is the battery compartment & the little door can get knocked off to easy, I reinforced the wood were the 2 little wood screws go, cause it had already split one side enough to make the screw not hold. That's the only reason I knocked off a point. Also a little LED pops on when you plug it to tell you the battery is good, and I think when the battery was almost dead, it came on faintly and stayed on to wake me up!
The only other problem I had was the B string was WAY louder, but that turned out to be cause the saddle piece(made of bone), was slightly loose if you lean it forward or backward, and B-Bands installation manual for the A2.2 says that it must be tight! SO I shimmed it and it ALL the notes are balanced. Now this probably happened because I bought it used & the story goes it was owned by Buzz Fenton (or is it Feton?), who has a patented system involving the nut (and maybe the saddle?) to deal with the B string being half out of tune all the time, so he proably messed with the saddle as well as the nut. This guitar sounds great unpluged also.
