Jazzmaster Trems, AVRI vs Jap ?

DrBob

Hello team !

Currently in the process of putting together a Jazzmaster from a lovely @GSPBASSES neck & body which have been across the bench at @lamf68 's place and had an eye scorchingly unsubtle purple metalflake Nitro paintjob applied !
Mojo Pickups are ready to go in, got the Staytrem bridge too, the sticking point currently is the trem.
I'd quite like one with the button lock option and received wisdom seems to be that the AVRI unit is the weapon of choice but it looks like £100 to get one.
In my searches I notice I can pick up a Fender Jap one for nearer £50 still with the lock button.

Is there that much difference ? Is the AVRI really worth twice the money ?

benecol

Yes, absolutely. Especially on a JM (rather than a Jag), for reasons that have always confounded me. Ebay.com (rather than .co.uk) often throws out some cheaper ones, even with shipping and comedy tax. And look at offsetguitars.com forums too?

Funkfingers

+1 for the Offset Guitars specialist web site. There, the difference is thoroughly explained. The MIJ tailpiece looks right but an essential little piece of metal is absent, rendering the lock mechanism ineffective. 

Gagaryn

I would go US, they work great when set up properly - there must be some popping up 2nd hand as Mastery replacements seem quite popular.

I'm on the look out for the innards of one myself - Fender CS in their infinite wisdom decided to "Relic" the one on my quitar in it's assembled state rather than disassembling and relicing just the plate and what ever they used has had much more effect on the spring and internal gubbins meaning that even after cleaning with WD40 and a wire brush it is in a very sorry state.

DrBob

Bahhh, I rather thought that might be the case !

Okay, thanks all for the input, given the quality of the rest of the components of this build I dont want to skimp on the bridge so I'm guessing AVRI it is.
Strings Direct have them but they're £100, I've looked at ebay and they seem to be around £70-80 from the US but by the time you've shipped them here & paid costs it will be about the same anyway !

impmann

The Jap trems aren't that great tbh.

HOWEVER, if you can find one of the Mexican Trems from the Classic Player series, these are very good. I'm not a fan of the screw in arm (squeeks and you get the inevitable slack/slop) but with a Staytrem arm these trems are excellent - and they have 'the button'. They are also significantly cheaper than the AVRI unit.

DrBob

impmann said:

The Jap trems aren't that great tbh.

HOWEVER, if you can find one of the Mexican Trems from the Classic Player series, these are very good. I'm not a fan of the screw in arm (squeeks and you get the inevitable slack/slop) but with a Staytrem arm these trems are excellent - and they have 'the button'. They are also significantly cheaper than the AVRI unit.

Ooohh, good intel, thanks Tim !

bbill335

The AVRI units are fine but recent ones are far, FAR from perfect. The arms are just wrong, they're a shape that never existed on an offset Fender during their original production. Often, the machining of the moving parts is worse than the cheaper MIM/MIJ/Allparts units.

Once you've factored in buying the staytrem arm and whether or not you'd ever actually use the lock, you might be close to mastery territory and their vibrato units are almost definitely better than the pretty poor-value US trem. 

US vibratos come up secondhand sometimes but even then, they're quite pricey for what they are.

DrBob

See, I did scope out the Allparts one on the assumption that the quality would be alright as it is with their other gear and at £36 it seems like a good price BUT
1.) Out of stock on the Allparts UK website (there's a surprise right ?)
2.) No locking button

benecol

Allparts ones are bobbins, sadly.

DrBob

Anyone got any experience of the Golden Age ones from Stewmac

http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_Parts/All_Hardware_and_Parts_by_Instrument/Electric_Guitar_Parts/Electric_Guitar_Bridges_and_Tailpieces/Electric_Guitar_Tremolos/Golden_Age_Bridge_and_Tremolo_for_Jaguar_Jazzmaster.html

It's got the string lock and it looks like with postage it will still be less than buying an MIJ one new.
KInd of quite like the idea of not having a Fender logo on the guitar as well given that it isnt..

But there's no point if it's rubbish

impmann

No first hand knowledge at all but I'd check with Staytrem to see if they can supply an arm for it, in case the supplied one is clanky/sloppy.

DrBob

I did actually give in and pull the trigger last night on the AVRI one that Strings Direct had on their website for £99 only to have them get in touch this morning to say they were out of stock....

impmann

I know it's in the US but...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291978242611

DrBob

impmann said:

I know it's in the US but...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291978242611 ;

It's showing as 'item unavailable' Tim. Man I wish I'd bought that one you had for sale !

impmann

How odd, comes up fine on my phone but doesn't work on the computer...

Try putting number 291978242611 into the search field in ebay... that's working this end on the computer.

DrBob

impmann said:

How odd, comes up fine on my phone but doesn't work on the computer...

Try putting number 291978242611 into the search field in ebay... that's working this end on the computer.

Found it ! Hmmmm tempting