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Yesterday I attended the Dallas international guitar show. This was my first guitar show, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect other than guitars everywhere. I got to meet some great manufacturers and try out a few boutique brands that I had never heard of before who are doing great things, such as Warrior guitars. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mike Ortiz and Peter Farmer while visiting the heritage booth. Great guys. I first was chatting with Mike for a bit and I expressed my zeal for the brand. After a bit, I share with him a picture of my favorite heritage, my H-155. He excitedly yelled for Pete to come over and check it out. When Pete came by I showed it and immediately he smiled and said he remembered building that guitar. Pete told me that he doesn’t know if I realized (I didn’t), but my guitar was built comepletely end to end by himself. Pete spoke about the detail of how my washed blue is different than the washed blue that they now use (which I’ve noticed) and described why it was different (on my guitar he hand sanded the paint to achieve the look). He said that the workers thought it was too difficult and time consuming to go that route for the production. Pete remembered the details such as putting the binding in the single f-hole. I could feel his pride and satisfaction as he spoke out my guitar. What an awesome experience for me! I walked away knowing that my cherished axe was forged by a master, which I already knew by how it played, but now I know that master’s name is Pete Farmer.

I have before on here. But here it is again for the sake of the story

My 150 Artisian Aged Custom Core has been a labor of love in modifying it to how I wanted it to look and sound. Like the theory behind the 150 CC, I used a '59 LP Burst as my inspiration. -Some of the mods were merely just personal choice; 1) I greatly prefer A2 magnets over A3 magnets so I installed a used set of Throbak SLE 101s pickups with aged covers. 2) I like the look of the Rhythm/Treble "poker chip" pickup selector 3) I replaced the orange drop caps with the same values in repro Bumble Bee paper & oil caps 4) For consistency in pot values and taper I installed RS Guitarworks 500K volume and tone pots -Some of the mods were just necessary functionally; 1) the bridge studs and the stoptail studs were drilled at an angle instead of straight into the top from the factory so the TOM bridge & stoptail wouldn't lower completely. So a Faber locking ABR bridge and Faber locking StopTail studs were used to fix the original off angle bridge & stoptail studs. 2) three of the aged tuners stripped and became useless. I replaced them with CHROME (I couldn't find Nickel ones which I would have preferred) Gotoh tuners that were a direct drop in, lighter, and had improved tuning ratio. .... BUT WAIT, A MAJOR UPDATE ON NEW AGED NICKEL FINISHED GOTOH TUNERS.... SO... the last 150 CC mod/improvement was buying on Ebay some new Antique Nickel Finish Gotoh tuners. To me, the Chrome on the Gotohs tuners was a complete eyesore with the aged finish of the rest of the 150 CC. These new Antique Nickel Finish Gotoh tuners were not cheap ($110 + shipping) but to me they were the final piece in the puzzle to getting my Aged 150 CC to look close to Vintage LP Burst. (I also added some Kluson-like tuner buttons to finish the transformation) BEFORE with the CHROME GOTOH tuners AFTER with the new ANTIQUE NICKEL GOTOH 510 tuners

Well said, Kuz. My take on the whole thread is this: Who cares? So an H150 might sound different from a Gibson LP. So what? That doesn't make it a bad or undesirable guitar. The entire 'holy grail' thing about LP tone is utter nonsense. Why should that be the standard by which everything else is judged? I think people should look at how much they enjoy an instrument's playability first--if you don't enjoy playing it, you're not likely to play it--, and maybe its sound later. Sound can be altered in so many ways from pickups to pedals to amps to amp settings, and I think it's pointless to chase after some mythical sound they think they hear from something manufactured 65 years ago.

Look, this is a very subjective and controversial subject on what impacts the tone of a guitar the most. I will default to Terry Mcinturff (master luthier and has made guitars for all major artists). Check him out on YouTube. His main concept is that pickups are only microphones that amplify the acoustic sound of an electric guitar's chassis. He states how Barbara Streisand's voice will definitely will change (mostly tonally) when she sings through different vintage microphones, but her basic vocal characteristics (her vibrato, her vocal range, her loudness and punch, ect) are still the same. His point; the wood dictates the essentials of an electric guitar's tone & sustain. Different pickups will change the overall tone/timbre, but it won't enhance the sustain, or the openness, or fix muddy or thin guitars. Pickups can only magnify what the acoustic tone coming from the body's chassis is producing. I have owned two McInturff's (still own one Carolina Custom) and it is truly the best single cut/LP style guitar, I have ever played. Bottom line, when shopping for an electric guitar spend most of your time playing it acoustically listening for the overall tone, sustain, and check for dead spots (sustain and dead spots can't be fixed by different pickups).

Here are some shots of my band and me playing a gig last night. A friend of mine is a professional photographer who has photographed many jazz legends up close in performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival and (and many other venues) for decades . https://michaeloletta.com/. He’s a real pro and can make even an amateur like me look like a real musician. I had no idea he was photographing. Consummate professional. The guitar is way more photogenic than me…

I detest the absolute absurdity of YouTube videos like this. There are a couple of YT formulas to get a lot of hits on guitar vids, the first being, "...I can make this cheap used squier just as good as the custom shop all those rich guys paid too much for!" The other is "you can't hear it/yes I can hear it!" First of all, Gibson has churned out a LOT of things with the "Les Paul" model name on it. Thing is, they ALL SOUND DIFFERENT even though they all say, "Gibson Les Paul". It depends, what wood, what construction method, what hardware, what pickups and even what strings are on it, what it is plugged into and most of all, who's playing it. My 1998 H150 came with SD 59's, and Nashville Tune-o-Matic and a zing stop bar. It weighs a bit over 9lbs. It also came with 70's era Les Paul potentiometer in it, namely, 300K/100k volumes and tones. So, it sounded pretty dark most of the time I've owned it. I had occasion to replace a pot, was surprised to find the values and put in the more commonly used "vintage" era 500k pots. Incredible difference in tone, much brighter, fuller and a touch more output. I have a 60th Anniversary Gibson Les Paul 1960-Reissue, V2. It's 1 piece mahogany, no weight relief, 8lbs, 1oz in weight. It has the correct "'burst" era ABR-1 screwed into the wood and the light aluminum stop bar. It has the Custombucker III pickups, unpotted, alnico-III very PAF type in it, and the 50's era wiring. It does that, "beefy telecaster" Les Paul thing, in spades. Plus, at 8lbs, it is a joy on my aging back. These two sound incredibly different from each other, despite being so extremely similar in so many ways. But my Gibson Les Paul sounds incredibly different than a Norlin era Les Paul with the pancake body and a maple neck, and different than an 11lb example from the 1980's with Tim Shaw's, or T-tops, or any of the overwound, ceramic magnet pickups they offered at the time. So, really, no one can hear the "brand", but you can discern between instruments that were built differently, of different materials and methods, even if the brand and model are the same. My just acquired 2001 H535 is super light and it gets that classic 335 tone. I had a 1997 ES335 "dot reissue" that sounded like poo, no matter what you did with it.

Honestly, what pickup winder offers a low-moderate output conventional humbucker that isn't claimed to be a "PAF clone". 🤔 Schaller made an enormous number of pickups, and an enormous *variety* of pickups. There's not just one Schaller humbucker sound, there are a huge number of Schaller pickup variants, all made to order for different guitar manufacturers. Here's one of my favorites, a 1984 Fender Esprit Elite, part of the "Fender Master Series", the Esprit, Flame and D'Aquisto. Robben Ford played the Esprit, and Fender eventually re-launched it as the Robben Ford signature series. It's a really nice guitar, made in Japan and supervised by D'Aquisto. These were the first with Fender's "TBX" tone control system and intended as very high-end instruments. The pickups are Schaller, used on all three models. They are definitely on the mellow side, and have a unique mounting system with 3-point alignment, and the top of the pickup has a radius to match the strings. Of course, all the rest of the hardware probably looks familiar, tuners, bridge and fine-tune tailpiece are all Schaller. All of this still works great 40-years later. This unusual pickup system appears in Schaller's OEM literature in the mid-1970's. I'm not aware of another guitar maker who used it. They were not cheap, and quite innovative. I don't know what deal Heritage did with Schaller, or what they ordered or what spec's they asked for from Schaller. But they could have ordered whatever they wanted from them.

Schaller did all kinds of stuff right. Lots and lots and lots of very well made Schaller guitar parts out there. The "Nashville Tune-o-Matic" bridge - Schaller. Look how many say, "made in Germany". Schaller right there. They made a lot of very good tuning machines used on a variety of brands. The Schaller GTM bridge, aka "roller bridge" works fine, just looks weird. The top-loader tailpiece is weird looking, but very functional, especially with fine-tuners, if you want fine tuners. Schaller humbuckers were well regarded in their day and widely used by the entire guitar industry. I've taken electrical measurements of them as well as taken them apart and honestly, they're well made and nothing bad about them. Guitar pickups are about 98.9% mythology and 1.1% actual engineering. There's only so many ways to wind two bobbins full of wire and stick a bar magnet between them. You might like something else, because it is different, but that doesn't mean the other is "bad". I also can't fault Schaller on the spare parts support and ease of ordering. I've certainly replaced many worn or butchered saddles and other miscellaneous stuff over the years and you can still order them right from Schaller in Germany. You can even ask them questions about stuff they stopped making 30 years ago and if they have the data, they'll actually try to answer your technical questions.

Wow! Beautiful! I think they called the H-155's with that florentine cutaway the "Pro" model? Very cool you got to meet it's maker, too. Pete is the man!

I have compared my H150 directly with new and older LPs. It didnt really sound like any of them, and to be honest even the LPs didnt sound the same as each other. My H150 also didnt sound like any of the H150s I compared it to although a lemon burst had a similar vibe about it, same tight clear bottom end. Even with different pickups it still didnt sound like anything Ive compared it to. My stock 1978 Ibanez CN100 or 200(?)( I cant remember) sounded more like some of the R8,9s than my H150. The Ibanez had a bolt on neck :0 . If the H150 sounded like any of the LPs I looked at, I doubt I wouldve bought it. I wouldve kept looking for the sound I was looking for in a LP style guitar. Its not that my H150 doesnt have a LP style guitar sound, most LP style guitars do, it just has a "thunk", a tight, deep, clear bottom end and a clarity right through the mids to the top without getting harsh and fizzy but still giving the right amount of "chank" and "ching". Most LP style guitars Ive tried, H150s included, had a "chalkiness " through the whole range of frequencies that annoys me. I think most people actually look for and desire that chalky sound, so I could be describing it wrong. Thunk, chank, ching and chalkiness... I know what I mean.

Are you saying you're going to put a Nashville Faber on your guitar??? I have never heard a guitar go from an ABR bridge to a Nashville and sound better. And as I've said in many earlier posts, I've worked on 100's of guitars. I love Faber bridges, and as Kuz will tell you, I hipped him to them. I especially like the brass saddle tone lock bridges. I have them on both of my H150s, my H525 P90 (that Kuz sold me), and my Firebird. Every single time they cleaned up the low end and gave me a more balanced tone. On every one of these guitars they replaced a Nashville! Another benefit of the ABR is that could always get the tailpiece into it's sweet spot (low to the body) without having the string hit the back of the bridge. And besides the guitars that I still own. I replaced the Nashvilles on two other Les Paul Specials, an SG Classic, and a Firebird. And all of those sounded better with the Faber ABR. I only ever had one bad experience with Faber with an ABR that sounded dead. But a few weeks after I installed it I got a letter from Larry Corsa and he told me mine came from a bad batch and that he would send me a new one. I never told him about my bad bridge!!! And the new one was great. Now that's customer service! If you want a great set of pickups with the jazz/jb vibe, pair a Wolftone Legend in the neck with a Wolfetone Fenris in the bridge. Same vibe better tone. If your guitar is dark try a 0.15uf cap in the neck, and a .022uf in the bridge. If it's bright, try .022uf caps for both the neck and bridge! 500K pots all the way round! That's the setup in this guitar and it rules, I love having the ballsy bridge pickup...

I have read so many arguments about wood making a difference, the discussions seem to fall apart into chaos and anger. I’m not sure how anyone could argue with Terry Mcinturff though. I also firmly feel wood plays a huge role in the sound of the guitar and feel of the guitar. It is why I love my 150 so much, it is a joy to play plugged in or not. It is a joy to thump the neck with my finger and hear what it sounds like. When the guitar sounds great unplugged or just tapped on with a finger it will definitely sound great with good hardware, electronics and a great amp. They all come together for a killer sound. I play all my guitars unplugged the majority of the time. When I plug them in they all translate the unplugged sound and feel into the amp. I don’t use pedals and all my amps are fender derived so not super high gain and I think that really allows the guitar to express itself. Each one has its own character but they are all LP derived.

TO ME, the best repro PAF ever made and by far the most consistent from set to set. All my humbucker guitars have them and they are perfect for me. I have tried Lollars, Wolftones, Seth Lovers, Gibson Custombuckers, Peter Florence Voodoo Specials, and MANY more... none (TO ME) were close to Throbaks. Luckily, I bought most of my Throbaks years ago when they were more affordable!

Hey it's friday. A better shot of that trans black H150. Mic stand? Abuse on the front I might try & get refinned. Hey people pay extra for fake abuse & aging: does the real thing look as good? Lol

The aluminum Pinnacle bridge and stoptail on the 150 Custom Core is definitely a step in the right direction, but I wish (for at least the CC models) they would have used a locking Faber ABR or an original ABR-1 bridge. The biggest problem with the Pinnacle bridge is it uses proprietary bridge studs (screwed directly into the top) that are larger in diameter than the original ABR-1. The Faber locking ABR bridge will still work if you use the Pinnacle bridge studs, the Pinnacle thumb wheels, and the Pinnacle locking top screws. I am not sure if a traditional (non-locking) ABR-1 will fit with the large Pinnacle studs. Original hardware... Locking Faber bridge (using Pinnacle bridge studs, thumb wheels, and top locking caps. Locking Faber stoptail studs using the Pinnacle aluminum bridge. Stoptail is flat to the body.

Gee, I thought that it was my playing that made me sound beyond awful! It was the pickups in my 157 all along!

All of the above comments in this thread discussing how the many varieties of H150's, LP's, etc. sound different are very interesting and enlightening. For some odd reason however, I sound pretty much the same on all of my solid body guitars.

Awe, but they do.... I ordered some 510s off ebay with a new "Antique Nickel" finish. I will report back when they come in, installed, and post pictures.

20 years ore more ago people would buy digital cameras and test them and the lenses by taking pics of newspapers tape to their walls and go on about the good and bad. They never used their cameras to get decent photos. They would buy and sell and buy and sell -never satisfied. Was it the gear or was it the photographer? These discussions always take me back to that.

I got on the phone with Heritage and bought a b-stock, or "shop-worn" case at a nice discount. LOL, yeah, the guitar world makes no sense at all. So much is voodoo and superstition and the often silly, "conventional wisdom" from the interwebs. I'm an electrical engineer by training. I have the equipment to measure pickups magnetically and electronically. I can measure the coil inductance, capacitance, resonant frequency and I can take response plots using a signal generator, exciter coil and an integrator with an oscilloscope and make accurate frequency response Bode plots. If it weren't such a PITA to get to the wiring in a 335/535, I'd have measured these already. There's a little "white corrosion" I want to clean off the bodies of the pots, and I'm curious enough, that I'll get around to measuring these. The extra long solder joint on the covers of the HRW are a sign someone didn't want us in there easily. I've never seen images of one opened up. I have a pile of Schaller humbuckers in my work bench draw and I've measured them. It will be interesting to have an objective measure of these. Honestly, the difference in tone by setting the pickup-string distance was rather marked with the HRW, more than I think most humbuckers I've played with. I started at 1/16" from the string to the covers and worked them down, little by little. At a certain point, with just a little more distance, the zingy-ness dropped away and they got right into the zone. They have relatively strong magnetic fields, likely alnico-V magnets, as most similar Schallers and SD59's also have. The Custombucker III's in my Gibson have about half the magnetic strength at the poles, as they are alnico-III and they're happy to be very close to the strings.

My Heritages all have Grovers. I don't think I ever got any with Schaller tuners. I tried putting Ivory keystones on my Grovers once, they lasted a few weeks and were off. I think they look really classy, but they strip out too easily.

Thanks everyone! I've been around at least one or more Heritage Forums over the last 20 years. I got my H150 back in 2002, when it was a used guitar (very used at that point!) from Buffalo Brothers at the Marin Guitar Show. The H535 is my latest acquisition. I was out looking for a fretless bass of all things, spotted this hanging in a corner and gave it a tryout. Kind of like "just looking" at puppies at the pound. When I first looked it over, was amazed at the condition, despite the used-guitar-shop, "grunge" all over it. They had misdated it as a 2020, but the R-serial number clearly dated it, along with the Schaller bridge and two-screw pickups. The black dot switch tip I also spotted as the HRW, and sure enough, there they are. Handwritten date corresponds with the serial number. I'll keep the Schaller bridge and tail aside, as there's nothing wrong with them and cosmetically, they're also in good shape. As I recall from the era, HRW were a factory upcharge and I think the wood was likely a factory upgrade as well. The top, back and sides are very "flamey". Virtually no fretwear, binding nibs all intact. Clean inside and out, very little dust inside. After a little setup work, I managed to find a sweet spot for the pickup height adjustments, where it really gets that semi-hollow sound happening. The HRW's are pretty hot but remarkably clear sounding. Tone control is also very effective, and a little tone rolloff sweetens them up without darkening them. The Nashville bridge and aluminum stop bar made it a little brighter than the Schaller hardware, both acoustically and in the amp. Bummer about the case. This one clearly lived most of its life in the case, but who knows where it went. Would have loved to have it. Looks like TKL cases are still Heritage's manufacturer. It fits very well in a modern, "brown vintage Gibson" case for a 335. Though it just seems weird to put a Heritage in a Gibson case, and I need to sell the guitar (an ES-135) that lives in that case now. If I get a chance, I'll measure the inductance, capacitance, resonant frequency and make a Bode plot of the pickups. I've been studying Schaller pickups from the 80's-2000's for another project. It will be interesting to see how they compare electronically.

1) I like the feel and generally the look of the "aging" on CCs. But the headstock aging is a little too much for sure. 2) The tuners do suck. I replaced them with drop in Gotohs and it is a HUGE improvement. 3) The pickups sound OK, but I like A2s so I dropped in a used set of Throbak SLE-101s. I called Heritage to see if they would sell me a set of unpotted Parson Street pickups, but they said no because they were all currently potted.

Here are my votes. Tuners: ok Tailpiece: too heavy Bridge: roller bridge good for Bigsbys Pickups: good for jazz hollowbody archtops The engineering is very good. Designs are not optimal for many uses. Growers are excellent tuners. SD 59s are a solid default. Whatever they are using for bridges and tailpieces are a step up.

no I just prefer the locker because it keeps the bridge on when your changing strings, same with their tailpiece

As I said I LOVE their tuners. So I'm not knocking them across the board, just saying that I'm not a fan of their hardware or pickups if I'm going after the classic old LP Kalamazoo sound. If people like their stuff, and they are getting the sound they want out of their guitars, that's all that really matters. This was opinion thread, and we all have them.

There's a lot of hocus-pocus in the pickup industry. In reality, Schaller made a LOT of pickups, probably millions of them and virtually all went to OEM's, like Heritage, G&L, and many, many others. They made whatever the OEM wanted to order, underwound, overwound, hex-screw poles, blades, single coil, humbuckers, magnet type, heck, pink polka dots and skull stickers if that's what they guitar maker wanted. Just like DiMarzio and Seymor Duncan offer dozens of variations. The Schaller Golden 50's, their "vintage PAF" flavor, are pretty good actually. Better IMO than Gibson 57 Classics.

Actually just the opposite, the cap plays a bigger part in the sweep but not when it's wide open. The 490R/498T setup is tried and true, but I would use an .015 cap on the 490R for the clarity but more importantly, it's perfect for the woman tone when the tone knob is rolled off! As for the NSWkit I have never used that alone, at first I used Faber inserts which were far better than the stock Gibson and Heritage inserts. Difference very clear here, stock inserts in the left. Faber German steel, Gibson/Heritage pot metal! And than I used the BSW kit in one of my H150s and I heard a difference. Kuz also had the BSW kit installed in my H535 P90 (once again, thank you Kuz!!!) Kuz has extensive experience with Faber you should address some of these questions to him. That way it's more than my opinion

My favorite finish! so nice.

Wow this looks fantastic !!! What a piece with white limba !....

I am sorry, YES, you are correct they were Sperzel tuners, not Schallers that stripped out. I stand corrected, thanks for bringing that to my attention.

I have a 1998 H150 CM, VSB. It was ordered from the factory with Seymour Duncan 59's, tune-o-matic bridge and standard stop bar tailpiece. I bought it a few years used, and have played for well over 20 years now. It's been a great, no issues instrument. It is a little over 9lbs, I'm getting to where that's kind of my limit. What's interesting is that swapping the zinc (heavy) stop bar for aluminum and the Grovers (also heavy) for vintage-style tuners would bring it under the magical 9lbs mark. It's always been very resonant. I've really done nothing to it all these years, other than change the pots a few years ago when one of them got to be a little funky.

Are you sure these weren't Sperzel tuners? I've had this exact problem with Sperzel tuners, which Wolfe ordered on his guitars for a while, but never with Schallers.

Gee thanks Rich. I was going to swear that my ThroBaks were crap, but I guess it was me all along!

I remember my first LP was a 79’ Custom. I swapped out the T-Tops, because they were too microphonic. I put a set of Duncan 59s’ which in 90’ were still considered great pickups. This was way before the whole “Boo-teek” thing started. That guitar sounded great, but had to weigh 12lbs. Back in 90’ I was a kid, so the weight wasn’t an issue. Over the years I’ve found that heavier LP style guitars sounded better (to me). Not sure if there’s any science behind that, or just by chance.

I had a '99 H-150 that must have been between 11 to 12 pounds. It sustained for days. I liken it to a piano. Great tone! I sold it because it was so heavy -even in my late twenties. I have only heard one guitar like that and it was a friend's father's '59. Yeah, nice suite... I found several suits in the dumpster out side of my apartment. I brought the jackets in to give to a young kid living near me. A buddy said to put on the jacket and glasses and do a Stephen Stills thing and he took a photo. The kid loved the jackets. I didn't tell him they probably belonged to a dead man.

This is a complete shot in the dark, but worth a try nonetheless. I am trying to track down a 2007 Goldtop H150 Classic I special ordered in that year. It had an ebony fretboard which sets it apart some. I do have record of the serial number, but won’t post that publicly. It had a unique spot on the back of the body that was lighter than the rest. I sold it to HOC member 602a in 2010. I believe he then sold it to someone living in Seattle. I had to sell it at the time. I would love the chance to buy it back or at least know what became of it. Maybe someone will see this and know. If so, please message me.

You could line up 7 R7s and they would sound similar, but not exactly the same. A while back I had several L.P. style guitars in the house so a friend and I decided to have a tone party. The lineup consisted of an R7 goldtop from mid 2000s, a 70s L.P custom, a L.P. classic, and finally a core 150 with stock 225 pickups. We played all through a Suhr SL68 100w plexi style head into a 70s Marshall 412 bottom cab loaded with original blackbacks. I really do love a good R7 with the fatty neck and burstbuckers, but I've gotta say, we both clearly choose the Core 150 as the champion that day. When I first heard those 225 pickups I was underwhelmed. I just didn't spend enough time to get what makes them good. The lower output makes for great clarity, but when run into an amp that is cranked up it was a thing of sonic beauty. Seriously, it sounded way better than the guitars that were there that day. The L.P. custom had some hand wound units...can't remember the winder. Also, the R7, whole lit was a nice guitar, I've had other ones that were better sounding. Saying that a core 150 sounded "Les Pauly" is an odd statement.

Tad, that wasn't smoke.... that was leftover mojo from being played in a bar! 😜

I've had the same exact experience with Schallers! I've said this before that I did many pickup swaps for people as a side hustle, and replaced more than one set because, they were just dull sounding, just like any other overly potted pickup. I also can't stand Nashville bridges of any make, or any bridge that uses an insert into the body instead of the post going right in.

I completely agree that G’s LPs have changed over the years. Just taking a standard model, the Norland difference is huge, many had 3 piece maple necks. If they put on a blindfold and played a mid 70s LP with a pancake body and maple neck would they say it doesn’t sound like a LP or would they gush over how great and perfectly LP it sounds. It really is ludicrous to think the branding on a headstock could make a difference in tone on otherwise identically built guitars.

Z, it's obvious you don't have cork sniffing golden ears. They did the same thing with a bunch of Klon clones. Of course they were turning knobs and adjusting the sound so that moves the results. Is A=B or A=E? Is A=A? In my opinion, the biggest factor in the "tone" of an electric guitar (maybe 3/4) will be in the pickups. THEN you can start adding in all the other stuff, wood, hardware, setup, pick (yeah, your choice of pick has a HUGE influence). But you're absolutely right, there's no absolute target LP tone to my ear. You can compare the LP to the 150cc and say they are different in some maybe minor respect, but if you pick up 10 150s and 10 LPs, you'll probably find the same variation within those 10. I did that some years back when playing a bunch of ES335s at Wilcutt. Even unplugged they were all different. WIthin a range (and assuming you are talking multiples with the same model pickup) they'll have a certain characteristic compared to a Strat, or a Tele, or a Rick or a Gretsch. Yank out the 225 pickups or the Burstbuckers and put in some Duncan Invaders, or EMGs and you've got a completely different animal. I find that guitars feel different, and that would clue me into what I'm playing pretty drastically.

Hard to argue with any of the above EXCEPT.... EVERY pair of Schaller tuners that I had with ivoroid buttons (which was default on 150s for a while) eventually striped. I know many others that had the same problem. My G tuner striped in a gig and was unrepairable.

Tuner's: Every set I've ever used were GREAT! I prefer them over most tuners except for the really high end Gotohs! Tailpiece: good for holding doors open, or holding stacks of paper down. Bridge: never found a use for ANY roller bridge, if a Bigsby isn't working, I say go TruArc bar bridge and if needed Serpentune! Pickups: decent at best, if they worked in a guitar I probably wouldn't yank them, just kidding, they'd be out in a second If I wanted PAF tone: I would go with Wolfetone Legends, Throbak MXV, Tyson Precious and Grace etc.

Congrats on the new guitar. Here's my H170 (I believe it's a 1990

or frustration LOL