2004 JEM7VWH Spec change - Page 8

The 7th 7 · #**106** 01-11-2006, 10:55 PM

No, I personally don't think that rosewood is any inferior to maple or ebony.

To illustrate using a metaphor: "What ice-cream flavour is better, vanilla or strawberry?" It boils down to a matter of personal taste as far as playability, sound and aesthetics are concerned.

Similarly, Jem players prefer a wider, thinner neck compared to say, the baseball bat profile of a Les Paul. Is either guitar necessarily better than the other? No, I believe taste in guitars is highly personal, and it is difficult to generalise guitars into categories of superiority/inferiority on the basis of wood-type.

Word to the wise: Selecting a guitar purely on the basis of its appearance is as silly as marrying a girl because of her looks, or buying a house because of its paint job.

On that note, I am curious as to how many people who have responded to this thread and made untoward comments about Jems and woods have actually OWNED a Jem at some point, or for that matter, PLAYED one.

typedeaf · #**107** 02-02-2006, 01:09 AM

I have owned a few guitars. Maybe a dozen and most of those have been Jems. I bought a Jackson SL2H the very day I played one for the first time. I am not exactly sure why I liked it so much, but it does have an ebony fretboard and alder body. These two facts made me really want to get a VWH. My first guitar was a Strat with a maple neck. A friend of mine had a Strat with a rosewood neck. I liked the look of the rosewood, and he the maple. We swapped necks and the difference in tone was night and day. It went from a very bright guitar, to very dark...tone. Before, clean channel stuff sounded kind of brittle, and the rosewood warmed that up. For solos, the maple was a much better choice. Since ebony is supposed to be an even denser wood than maple, I assume that it adds a lot to the brightness and possibly sustain. I am going to try to find a pre '04 simply because my gut tells me that the combination of Alder and Ebony is magical.

If people cant tell the tonal difference between maple/ebony/rosewood then they have bad ears. When I was first playing, I heard ebony was also better because it was "harder' and thus made tapping and legato stuff easier. Not sure if thats true still.

Someone said its silly to buy a guitar based on looks, well then that would pretty much make the Jem obsolete since its just gaudy RG. Right? Im sorry, but I like consider looks and feel. Same reason I cant buy just a car that drives well and looks ***. Looks are important and the guitar should reflect a little of your personality imho. The Jem is very flashy, like Vai's playing. I like the Jems because I like flash playing and because they are built for speed. The nice black ebony fretboard definately added character to the guitar.

I want a new VWH...NOW!! But it looks like I am going to have to wait for someone to give up a pre '04 VWH or I will always feel like I got the downgrade version. Or maybe I will get a custom shop Jackson.

What about the change in the neck and tremolo? Is the 5 piece neck a downgrade from the early 1 piece necks? Is the new edge-pro any good? I played a new VWH in the store the other day and hated it, but I think it was set up wrong. So many changes. Ugh. I still love my LNG I got from Glen more than the rest of the Jems I have owned. The necks were sanded differently then or something and they just feel goooood.

Phishphood42 · #**108** 02-24-2006, 06:54 PM

Rosewood isn't inferior but it is cheaper. You can't use fret stamping machines on rosewood and companies like PRS and Gibson prefer to make their guitars within seconds.

Rodney James · #**109** 05-22-2006, 11:18 AM

...................

Robotechnology · #**110** 12-31-2006, 01:21 PM

Just so you guys know... when the word "cheaper" is thrown around, it is referring to $15 less. That's the max difference in price between a nice Rosewood and a nice Ebony board. Be aware that there are also forms of Rosewood that cost both the same and more than Ebony as well. Buy your guitar by how it sounds not by what you read in internet forums

frank.friess · #**111** 02-08-2007, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney James

Rosewood on the VWH does make it sound smoother, yet something about the airey sound the Ebony gave the JEM7VWH, it holds it's own ground with a nice mystical tone.

I own a 2003 vwh with ebony fretboard as well a 2006 vwh with rosewood fretboard. With identical and new strings the guitars sound 100% identical over a triaxis, 2:90 combination in clean and super-distortion sound.
I think the differance in sound is only an illusion....

Frank

Wordicus · #**112** 04-23-2007, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robotechnology

Buy your guitar by how it sounds not by what you read in internet forums

That is some of the best advice I've read in a long time.

Chrisb-83 · #**113** 05-25-2007, 11:07 AM

Hey everyone, I guess Im an official Jem owner now. I just picked up my first higher end guitar this week, an 02 7vwh. A little more than I wanted to spend but the price was too good to pass up. Its MINT and plays amazing. My old RG is falling apart, so I'll probably turn it into a project guitar (Probably nothing good, I just like taking things apart.) I love the sound I get out of this beast. I was late to work yesterday cause I made the mistake of picking it up and playing. I looked at Parkers too, but they were out of my price range and I thought the sounds was a bit bright for my taste.

Well anyways back to the topic at hand, my jem7 has the ebony board which I think looks better on the guitar. I have played rosewood and ebony before, but I can't honestly notice a difference in tone. Its all preference I guess.

Kerem · #**114** 05-26-2007, 07:34 AM

i have a friend that has jem7vwh with ebony finger board, playibility seems to better than rosewoods.
maybe im wrong but ebony feels smoother than rosewood

alex.p · #**115** 11-07-2007, 05:32 PM

Can I just check, is EVOs board ebony, or just rosewood thats gotten very dark?

**jim777** · #**116** 11-07-2007, 05:40 PM

Evo has had a number of necks, but they've all been rosewood boards for years now.

alex.p · #**117** 11-07-2007, 05:45 PM

Thanks for that jim, I thought they had mostly been rosewood but was just looking at a pic of evo and got confused because the board was almost black..

Armitage · #**118** 11-30-2007, 06:52 AM

On a brilliant white guitar, I think the ebony looks much nicer, but couldn't care less for any other difference. With well over 75 guitars here, I can't say I've ever noticed a difference in feel or tone between rosewood and ebony (not saying there isn't one though).

Real_Illusions · #**119** 12-17-2007, 08:35 AM

I was looking forward to an Ebony fretboard on the one i just bought, but its a newer one and has a rosewood. I cant say im not disappointed because:

1. Steve plays it. Thats the point of these guitars. Its Steves instrument.

2. Rosewood sounds good. It adds warmer qualities to it. Both maple and ebony increase brightness. If you like a warmer tone over a bright tone, Rosewoods your favourite.

3. It may not be your favourite feeling wood, but its not like it feels *bad*! if it that much of a problem, get the thing scalloped. Try something new and elimate the "feel problem"

4. I prefer the look of ebony, but i must say i think rosewood makes a guitar look more "instrument like", in my opinion.