Leaderboard

My favorites: Of course, there’s your Fine 157 in chestnut sunburst, the 3 holer @Gitfiddler, I understand it’s a sin to covet another’s beauty but that guitar has haunted me since I first saw her. Since I’m on a trip down memory lane… @Millennium Maestro’s half century H-150. Possibly the best custom guitar built. It comes with a boatload of stories going back to his first purchasing the wood. There’s @kbp810’s 157 with possibly the world’s prettiest wood. Not forgetting @Spectrum13’s H-575 custom in mahogany and spruce. His nestles in between G’s L4 and L5CES made throughout of solid, natural tonewood. There’s @DetroitBlues’ 137. Someday I may just own that beast… @TalismanRich’s and @High Flying Bird’s chestnut sunburst guitars. I’ve seen an H-155 Eagle in CNSB that I’d really like to own. One of our seldom seen members (Brian?) brought a hollowbody to the hotel back in the barn days that I recall being floored upon first seeing. I don’t know what I’d do with it but, hey, look at it! Back in the @skinslammer days there was another member from this area who stopped by the ranch with his custom 150 he had. @snowplow (Pete) built it to mimic a ‘59 LP. That piece had a life-force I've experienced only once or twice since. There are SO MANY other beautiful Heritage guitars I’ve seen and played over the years. I’m sure I’ve forgotten many guitars that touched me but, you know, Father Time has a habit of erasing pure, exhilarating moments.

I've got a Digitech RP355 that I picked up years ago. I thought it would be nice to simplify things and just have one pedal. I played with it for a month or two, and it went over to the corner. Occasionally I'll give it another shot, and I soon get frustrated and move on. The old PodXT was better. As much of a pain as it is to transport it, I still like my individual pedals.

Received this when the sight was down. Honestly underwhelmed. I would have thought Heritage would have done some more special items on it. I have already talked to Custom Inlays about doing a few additions to it. I'll make it Special.

So, I'm one of those nerdy engineer types in real life. I've read the Peavey Transtube patents and they're pretty interesting. Sondemeyer was Peavey's chief engineer for decades. Hartley Peavey hired him directly from RCA's solid state division, back in the days when RCA was a giant manufacturer of tubes, transistors, integrated circuits and even microprocessors, as well as a huge maker of TV and other consumer electronics. Sondemeyer was a brilliant engineer. He created many things, including the CS-400 sound reinforcement amplifier. That was the world's first truly bullet proof professional audio amplifier. I still sometimes see these in venues that have probably been in use since the 1970's. Sondemeyer passed away about 10 years ago. I've actually bread-boarded out the original transtube preamp circuits from the patents and the first-generation amps. It is extremely clever, (getting nerdy here) a modified Darlington pair of transistors, and a couple of other tricks, to mimic the characteristics of vacuum tube triodes, like the 12AX7 tube used widely in guitar amps. That generation of guitar amps are actually quite good. Reliable too.

That is a beauty!