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Well, as I mentioned I suffer from Guitar Aquisition Syndrome. My most recent attack concerned a '62 Custom Telecaster. Actually not a real '62 as these are out of my league (and honestly in my humble opinion are more valuable from rarity as opposed to utility or musical value). This guitar was recently built by Fender to almost identical specs to the original '62. It features vintage frets on a rosewood fingerboard, a nitro finish, 3 saddle bridge. Not specifically looking to buy a guitar, I played this one at a local shop and found it to be exceptionally nice from both a tone and cosmetic perspective. Forgetting that I already have a perfectly good Telecaster I bought it. Then I got home. I rewired the tone and switch - (the '62 had a dumb forward position with a dark neck setting and no split setting) I don't know anyone who actually uses one of these and leaves it that way. I didn't care much for the vintage 3 saddle bridge that had problems with string spacing and intonation, so I upgraded that to a Callaham compensated brass saddle bridge. Now I really like the tone, in fact I prefer it tone wise to my other Tele, except perhaps for the hum when using it really in a really high gain setting (which is not really a Tele thing anyway).
Well, what about the other Tele. It's still a really nice guitar, and better than the '62 in some ways for a couple reasons. It's an '06 American Deluxe Ash, with a nice thick maple neck, jumbo frets, and SCN pickups. Its a bit heavy. It stays in tune more easily and has almost no hum from the truly noiseless pickups.
Well I decided to play them back to back and decide which one sounds better. Here's a video if you'd like to post your opinion, I'd be interested.
A couple of notes. To be fair, the Deluxe has 9s, and while easier to bend, they don't have quite the tone of the 10s on the '62. But the Deluxe has jumbo frets and I just couldn't hear the Tele tone I was looking for (a bit of string slap and more twang) from 10s - the 9s did that. The '62 has vintage frets and I like that sound. I might try 9s on the '62 - but the 10s feel pretty good and sound nice.
The bridge swapout didn't change the dramatically - a bit smoother and more sustain - from what I can tell, but I do like the compensated saddles, and the string spacing from the original 62 bridge was bogus with the grooves and screws interfering with a straight string path. (I saved the bridge so when I resell the guitar I will have all the vintage pieces).
