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Joined:
July 2003
Posts: 3111
Location: Nashville TN. | I an finding I perfer the sound of my 1612 Custom Balladeer (1981) 1117 Legend {electrified) 1980, TB1 Thunderbolt (1989) 1615 Pacemaker (1979) Both plugged in and Unplugged.
Is there something different about those made in that time? Or is it the aging process? |
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Joined:
June 2007
Posts: 3084
Location: Brisbane Australia | Us or the guitars?? :D
AJ |
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Joined:
July 2003
Posts: 3111
Location: Nashville TN. | the guitars |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I like my vintage guitars. However, I love my contemporary customs and am not likely to gig with anything else these days. |
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Joined:
December 2008
Posts: 1453
Location: Texas | Newer O's are still great guitars, but I tend to agree with you Pez, the older wood-tops sound better than their newer counterparts to me, too.
That might be because I got hooked on O's in the 70's, so those are the ones that have "that" sound to my ears. or it could be because the older ones have aged to a more mellow sound, or it could just be my imagination, I suppose.
I suspect it's all of the above… ;)
I wonder how much difference bowl material, depth & shape differences factor in? I was recently trying to figure out when the transition from fiberglass to Lyrachord bowls took place on the wood-topped models. Was Lyrachord phased-in over quite a few years?
The reason I ask is because I have a 1979 Custom Balladeer (1112) with a Lyrachord bowl and a Pacemaker (1115) from the same year that definitely has a fiberglass bowl. Both sound terrific, but I'm convinced that the fiberglass bowl is what makes the Pacemaker such an outstanding 12.
Since they are both acoustics, I can't address the "plugged" part of your question, but I really like the OP series pre-amps in the more recent models…
Let's see; fiberglass bowl, wood top, modern electronics? Sounds familiar…
;) |
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Joined:
March 2009
Posts: 416
Location: On the Coast - Halfway between SF & OR | Originally posted by standing:
I wonder how much difference bowl material, depth & shape differences factor in? I was recently trying to figure out when the transition from fiberglass to Lyrachord bowls took place on the wood-topped models. Was Lyrachord phased-in over quite a few years? "Lyrachord" WAS the original fiberglass process. There were two layers of fiberglass cloth that had a prescribed amount of resign poured on it in a heated press.
According to Beal in 2003,
"The early ones were fiberglass cloth with polyester resign done on a 100 ton press. The new ones are the SMC (sheet molding compound, or HMC- longer fibers and a higher % glass content). This stuff is like taffy and goes in the 300 ton press like a wad and gets melted, spread through out the die, and cured. It seemed like such a good idea at the time (1975). The thing is they just don't sound the same. By 1985 (I think) all production had switched over to SMC (again sorry guys, it seemed like such a good idea at the time). Some sound really good but it just doesn't ring like the old glass bowls.
SO, if you really want the stove knitting tree hugging bluegrass sound, you got to have an X brace, lacquer finished, straight acoustic, non cutaway, deep hand lay-up fiberglass CLOTH bowl." |
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Joined:
December 2008
Posts: 1453
Location: Texas | Thanks fletcher,
You are correct; I should have said "Cloth Bowl vs SMC" to be more accurate. I know better. (And thanks for not reminding me about the "search" button, I know better about that also.) ;)
Had I not been so tired/lazy/old I probably would have found/remembered THIS THREAD from a few months back.
AND HERE\'S an older thread along very similar lines as this current one. Interesting stuff, and always fun to revisit once and a while, imo.
What I haven't found yet: Is it possible to tell, just by visual inspection, which bowl-process any given old Ovation used?
Also, was there ever a Cloth Bowl O with a bolt-on neck which could be removed/reset without destroying (either) the bowl or the neck? (In other words; is a bowl-bend the only way to reset a neck on ANY cloth-bowl Ovation, including more recent ones?)
Anyone?
The more I think about the original question, the more I think that I prefer the older O's because that's how my first one sounded. Later models don't necessarily sound "better" or "worse" … just different. |
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Joined:
September 2003
Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | If I were to have a custom guitar made, a hand laid bowl would be right near the top of the list of gotta haves.
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Joined:
March 2009
Posts: 416
Location: On the Coast - Halfway between SF & OR | Originally posted by standing:
...was there ever a Cloth Bowl O with a bolt-on neck which could be removed/reset without destroying (either) the bowl or the neck? (In other words; is a bowl-bend the only way to reset a neck on ANY cloth-bowl Ovation, including more recent ones?) Great question. I had never thought of it before, but I haven't heard of any cloth bowls with bolt-on necks.
No search results that I could find, but I'm sure there's folks here who have an answer. |
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70's and 80's Ovation Vs New Ovations.
