Schaller or Kahler Floyd Rose?

SickBoy

SickBoy

Croatian Panzer division
Apr 9, 2004
2,061
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Split, Croatia, Europe
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My friend owns an Ibanez RG470 whose bridge began making problems.
It's the screws which tighten the string clamp blocks, they can't tighten properly anymore, instead they just rotate within the groove.
The material is apparently not the best around, so he started investigating what FR bridge to buy for replacement...

I've heard terrific things about Schaller's licensed FR bridges (but there were some complaints on Harmony Central as well) and even better about Kahler's Steeler FR. Schaller is available on www.stewmac.com, but I don't know if that Kahler is available anywhere, at least I couldn't find it...
OTOH, if Schallers are factory fitted on Caparisons, I doubt they're not outstanding.

Since I have no experience with any of these bridges, I need your opinions and recommendations... Thanks!
 
SickBoy said:
My friend owns an Ibanez RG470 whose bridge began making problems.
It's the screws which tighten the string clamp blocks, they can't tighten properly anymore, instead they just rotate within the groove.
The material is apparently not the best around, so he started investigating what FR bridge to buy for replacement...

I've heard terrific things about Schaller's licensed FR bridges (but there were some complaints on Harmony Central as well) and even better about Kahler's Steeler FR. Schaller is available on www.stewmac.com, but I don't know if that Kahler is available anywhere, at least I couldn't find it...
OTOH, if Schallers are factory fitted on Caparisons, I doubt they're not outstanding.

Since I have no experience with any of these bridges, I need your opinions and recommendations... Thanks!
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That Ibanez TRS or Lo-TRS bridge on the Korean RG's is a piece of shit. Get one of the real Edge or Lo-Pro Edge bridges and slap it on there. You'll never regret it.

Ryan
 
The Kahler Floyd copies always seems to have great sustain compared to other copies.

There's another...Ping I think it's called? That is supposed to be the tits.
 
hourglass said:
That Ibanez TRS or Lo-TRS bridge on the Korean RG's is a piece of shit. Get one of the real Edge or Lo-Pro Edge bridges and slap it on there. You'll never regret it.

Ryan
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+1 on this for sure ....

Personally i think the Lo-Pro is the best trm ever made. Ibanez really hit the nail on the head with it when they made it. Ive had mine for 17 years and the knife edge hasnt worn down. I use the bar EXTREMELY hevily ....

You an pick em up on ebay for under $100
 
SoSomething said:
You left out the best of the best - the Original Floyd Rose trem. The whole thing is made out of steel and is extremely durable.
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Y'know what, I did... :) I'll see if they're obtainable easily enough here in Croatia.

hourglass said:
That Ibanez TRS or Lo-TRS bridge on the Korean RG's is a piece of shit. Get one of the real Edge or Lo-Pro Edge bridges and slap it on there. You'll never regret it.
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They may be nice, but that plastic rings on the arm always wear out and I even saw an arm break at the place where the ring's supposed to be, cause it's narrower than the rest of the arm. And no, it wasn't mishandled...

The best way of inserting an arm into a bridge is that I saw on Wilkinson bridge! The arm is plain modeled stainless steel bar which inserts into a delrin covered hole just like that. Of course, there is a small hex screw outside which regulates the tightness of the arm...

The only Floyd Rose bridge with such arm insertion system I saw was the one on Maverick X-1 guitar, which uses Maverick LP-1 Floyd Rose...

EDIT:
I found this, Gotoh's FR. Now that I think of it, they produce Wilkinsons as well, so it makes sense...

guitarguru777 said:
You an pick em up on ebay for under $100
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Unfortunately I can't anymore... :(
BidPay was the only way for me to pay anything by credit card on eBay and they closed down. Damn... :bah:
 
SickBoy said:
BidPay was the only way for me to pay anything by credit card on eBay and they closed down.
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Uh...PayPal does credit cards. I use that allllllll the time.

As far as your delimma...get a fucking hard-tail guitar in the first place and you wouldn't have to worry about anything. More low-end, more sustain, stays in tune when you break a string, unison bends stay in tune...mmm good 'ol hard-tails/tune-o-matics, I'll take them over the ability to do a stupid ass dive-bomb any day. But that's just me. As far as a replacement, yeah the TRS/Lo-TRS/TRSII are peices of uber-junk. I replaced the one on my Ibanez S470 years ago with a Lo-Pro Edge. Huge improvement...3-4 years later and still no problems with screws stripping or anything at all for that matter. Perfect fit for replacement too.

~006
 
006 said:
Uh...PayPal does credit cards. I use that allllllll the time.

As far as your delimma...get a fucking hard-tail guitar in the first place and you wouldn't have to worry about anything. More low-end, more sustain, stays in tune when you break a string, unison bends stay in tune...mmm good 'ol hard-tails/tune-o-matics, I'll take them over the ability to do a stupid ass dive-bomb any day. But that's just me. As far as a replacement, yeah the TRS/Lo-TRS/TRSII are peices of uber-junk. I replaced the one on my Ibanez S470 years ago with a Lo-Pro Edge. Huge improvement...3-4 years later and still no problems with screws stripping or anything at all for that matter. Perfect fit for replacement too.

~006
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I agree with your statement other than that fact that unisons stay in tune ... bla bla bla ....

String breakage is an issue but there are ways around this ....

The trem setter is a great unit i have installed on ALL my trem equipped guitars. For $70 the guitar stays intune no matter what. It has minimal effect on the feel of the instrument. I can still do bar flutters and whatnot ...

As far as more low end ... its negligable. a good trem thats setup up properly and adjusted properly is just as stable and great sounding as a hardtail.
 
MilkAndCheese said:
The Kahler Floyd copies always seems to have great sustain compared to other copies.

There's another...Ping I think it's called? That is supposed to be the tits.
Click to expand...

They make killer golf clubs, too. :dopey:
 
J the TyranT said:
They make killer golf clubs, too. :dopey:
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I need to get another guitar with a Kahler whammy on it. It's been awhile since I abused one.

4%20Kahler%20bridges.jpg


They're really nice for rhythm playing.
 
guitarguru777 said:
As far as more low end ... its negligable. a good trem thats setup up properly and adjusted properly is just as stable and great sounding as a hardtail.
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I beg to differ. With all of the guitars that I own, some very similar to others with opposite bridges, the difference certainly is not negligable. When a bridge like the Tune-O-Matic is basically an extension of the body, and the floating tremolo system (FR, Kahler, Wilkinson, etc.) is merely balancing on two posts that are just driven into the wood, you cannot tell me that a floating trem will produce the same low-end that a hard-tail would, there's just more resonance with a hard-tail, whereas a floating trem is going through a ton of metal/steel before it gets there. The Floyd is great for staying in tune...however, using a correctly setup guitar with locking tuners works just as good. As such has been my years of experience with Floyds and hard-tails with locking tuners.

Playing any guitar unplugged, one with a floater, one with a hard-tail, exact models but different bridges, you'll notice the floater sounds thinner acoustically. This isn't an arguable subject. It's just fact.

Sure, you can buy things like the Tremsetter, and the Tremol-No...but gee, another chunk of change just to make the floater do what a hard-tail does? Why not save money in the first place since the same guitar model with a hard-tail costs a couple hundred less already? What exactly is the point of buying a floating trem equipped guitar if you're just going to eliminate a few of it's uses? Why even buy a floater in the first place? So you can pull your hair out trying to do a simple procedure like change one/all strings? So you completely fuck the show when you break a string in the middle of the best song? So you can dive-bomb? So your other guitarist that has a Tune-O-Matic bridge can sound heavier than you?

Don't get me wrong, I own a ton of guitars with Floyd's, and I know they are cool bridges to have. But from all my years with these things, I have never liked them. They do nothing but cause problems in the long run, I'd rather be able to finish my song and then just strap another string on real fast and tune it, than to have to set the axe down, unlock the nut, unlock the saddle, take out the string, put a new one in (cut the ball off as well), lock the saddle, tune the entire guitar over again, lock the nut, fine-tune, and then maybe 10 minutes later, get on with the show and hope the audience is still even interested....The guitars I own with floaters stay at the studio for clients to use. They stay professionally set-up and maintained.

I'm sorry, but if low-end, sustain, and tuning stability (string breakage, unison bends) are negligable, then maybe picks and strings are too? How about amps...might as well say they don't really mean all that much either while we're at it.

~006
 
006 said:
Uh...PayPal does credit cards. I use that allllllll the time.
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I'm sure you do, like all of the USA, China, EU, Australia and a few more countries... But I know what I'm saying. If you checked at PayPal you'd see no Croatia at their support list. Why is it like that - it's beyond me...
There wouldn't be a happier person than me if we here could use the damn PayPal.

As far as your delimma...get a fucking hard-tail guitar in the first place and you wouldn't have to worry about anything.
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I don't worry about anything, it's not my bridge that's failing. :)

More low-end, more sustain, stays in tune when you break a string, unison bends stay in tune...mmm good 'ol hard-tails/tune-o-matics, I'll take them over the ability to do a stupid ass dive-bomb any day. But that's just me.
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Well, it's always "win some - lose some", isn't it...
 
Oh sorry, I didn't realize you were in Croatia. Sorry to hear that PayPal has neglected to support you guys.

~006
 
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