New to Westones

Hello all!

New to Westone guitars, but not to Japanese guitars. I have an 85 fender E series strat, very nice, and a matsumoku kimbara strat, also very good.

Now I have purchased a Westone Spectrum SX (85), and a Spectrum II (84), both for £60.

I have a few queries for all of you Westone experts. I have spent a little time and effort getting these 2 guitars to a decent playing state, and they are both really excellent guitars. They play and sound really good. I am so impressed with them.

Virtually all of of the Spectrum I Is I have seen say "series II" , the one I have just says Spectrum II. Is there a difference between the 2 versions? Also do the SX and II have the same pickups? I know the SX is supposed to be more expensive/better, but to my ears I think the It has the edge on sound. Maybe it's just my ears!

Anyway, have to say, these are such great value guitars compared with so many other guitars I've had and played. They just "feel" right!

Cheers!

Congrats on the excellent buys!
A lot of the later SX's came with the so-so "UBC" pickups which have very low output (around 6K) and would sound thin compared to say, the MMK45 (around 11K) which will pretty much curl yer undies.

So is a 1985 SX a later one?

1985 is an "iffy" year. For the most part production models were top notch, but it seems going into the latter part of the year and into '86 things began changing. We see more UBC's being used where the 45's used to be standard issue.

A few other hardware changes popped up too and we suspect it was an attempt at fiscal control and a predictor of the difficult times ahead, ending with the plant closing in early '87.

The build quality however didn't seem to suffer, and the guitars remain worthwhile buys. Swapping out the pickups is an easy mod if they don't suit you. My SX is an '86 and had UBC's which I changed. Other members have 45's in their's, so it's a lottery as to what you end up with.