I'm going to contest a few of those - first off, the TS shaves off low end that fucks with the preamp gain and makes things into mush. If flab is your idea of the distinct sound of a high-gain guitar, then yes you may be losing that - but you're losing clarity when you have as much bottom as modern guitars do. You'll of course hear bitching all over about how the guitar is a midrange instrument - the TS is bringing that out.
Second, as far as pickups go the Super Distortion sounds like a PAF that got twice as loud all of a sudden. Output is a signal change, not necessarily an EQ change. By this logic, anything that has anything but a flat response is 'masking' the guitar's distinct sound and characteristics - bullshit! Find me one fucking thing that has a flat EQ curve and I'll show you something that doesn't mask the guitar's characteristics - and more than likely something that sounds like fucking shit too. Ever wonder why guitar-> hi-fi preamp and power amp -> hi-fi speakers sounds like shit? It's because the electric guitar's natural sound FUCKING SUCKS. Period. That's why guitar amps have less of a frequency response and such distinct curves.
Finally, pulling age is just bullshit - you can play clean guitar and no pedals and still get the same fucking thing. I started with jazz guitar, and I know what the traditional clean sounds are supposed to be - but those aren't the guitar's true characteristics, either, for the same reasons. Classic Fender amps are trebly as fuck because Leo was going deaf. Humbuckers were invented so pickups could shut the fuck up and not be noisy around anything that existed - ever. A solid chunk of wood used to be what changed the guitar's distinct sound. This is just ridiculous.
Jeff
--comprehension is your friend---and your suppose to let out the bong hit in case nobody told you.
