Members mparsons Posted April 20, 2009 Members Share Posted April 20, 2009 VERY NICE! The installation went fairly smoothly. The Floyd route had a tiny recess, so I had to fashion a small block of wood to allow the Arming Adjuster to sit flush. I installed it just a hair off center, I might go back and fix it later but it works great as is. Test 1: Tuning stability. Results? Excellent. Tuning stability is much better than unaided tremolo. Test 2: Drop tuning. Results? Capable! I can use the fine tuners to drop from D standard to drop C with less than 5 cents of tuning change across the rest of the strings, total. More than adequate for live use, and for recording purposes its very good. Test 3: Tone/volume. Results? So far so good. I haven't been able to plug in yet, but the unplugged volume is quite a bit better. Notes jump out of the instrument with a bit more ease and the individual note clarity is preserved a bit more. Test 4: Tremolo use. Results? Good. There isn't a noticeable impact or "zero point", largely due to two felt pads that stick to the unit and the bridge. Pulling up has a bit more resistance to it than usual, but its nothing bad. Dime squeals and whammy vibrato are easy. Flutters are impossible. Comparisons to other tremolo tools I've used: Hipshot Tremsetter: Does the same basic thing, but the tremsetter is MUCH worse quality. The AA is very well constructed and feels very solid. The Hipshot unit feels like a toy, with thin wires forming the reinforcement instead of a big support. Additionally, the Hipshot needs to have a big hole drilled in the guitar, whereas the AA only needs four screw holes. The Hipshot also has a sharp 0 point which inhibits motion across it. Tremol-No: The Tremol-no is designed to switch your bridge from full-floating, down-only, and blocked. In my experience, the unit does not work as well as advertised. It has a negative effect on tone in full-floating ( rattling and friction ), and the down-only and blocked modes do not work very well since it doesn't take much pressure at all to knock the restraints into full floating mode. When I tried to go from D standard to Drop C with the Tremol-no, the decreased pressure would be enough to dislodge the blocks and throw the whole thing off. I never broke a string to test how well it would respond to that, but I can't imagine it responding favorably. Additionally, even in blocked, you wouldn't be able to tune up ( IE, to go from D standard to Open Dm tuning ). In this respect, the Tremol-no is inferior to a simple wooden block if you want to have a hard tail feel or tuning ability, and it is inferior to the Arming Adjuster if you want to retain tremolo ability but gain the ability to drop tune on the fly or achieve some added tuning stability and tone. Considering that the AA costs $60 shipped from Australia ( Major props to Shane@Bmusic ), and the alternatives aren't much cheaper, the ESP Arming Adjuster is the best choice for improving the performance of your tremolo bridge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BeëlzeM Posted April 20, 2009 Members Share Posted April 20, 2009 Sounds interesting for my LTD. The Floyd is bugging me a bit. Does it get better in every way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dmtnt Posted April 20, 2009 Members Share Posted April 20, 2009 Good review, thanks. Been pretty unhappy with my TremelNo's sounds like this might be the answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mparsons Posted April 20, 2009 Author Members Share Posted April 20, 2009 Good review, thanks. Been pretty unhappy with my TremelNo's sounds like this might be the answer. Welcome! Hope you enjoy it if you get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dmtnt Posted April 20, 2009 Members Share Posted April 20, 2009 Rich at Ibanez Rules has them in stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mparsons Posted April 21, 2009 Author Members Share Posted April 21, 2009 Bump! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members starsnuffer Posted April 21, 2009 Members Share Posted April 21, 2009 They're nice. I have an ibanez backstop in one of my RG's. The arming adjuster was modeled from the backstop (though the backstop is essentially a "pair" of adjusters that sit between the springs in a 3 spring trem system. Hipshot has the patent in the US for their steaming turd, which is why you can't get them in the US local. -W Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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