Head to head
Four stellar electrics to take you to seventh heaven
Only the JP70 lacks some switchable gizmo on the tone pot, so we’ve got two humbuckers, switchable through three positions just as, say, a Les Paul does. It’s no one-trick pony – indeed the cleans are warm and chimy – but it nonetheless encourages high-gain exertions above all else. We love the middle position with both humbuckers engaged, the tone thick and wide without turning to mud.
The Schecter’s sonics are at the other end of the spectrum, albeit that spectrum is bridged by a capacity to turn nasty on command. The tone pot is a push-pull coil-tap that lets you tease some glassy, elastic cleans from the otherwise feral Schecter Decimator humbuckers. In such clean contexts, the seventh string – so often mined for low-end grunt by metal players – offers a de facto bass counterpoint, ripe with funk potential for fusion players, or those just looking to take their playing somewhere else. It’s not by accident that basswood and ash are
the tonewood choices here. Both are bright enough to assist the pickups in getting as much life out of that low seventh string.
The definition across all of these guitars is remarkable. And there sure is a defined sense of purpose to the San Dimas. Its speedy neck has a similar feel to the Mansoor’s Jackson, but there’s a more high-output crunch to its pickups. The no-load tone pot brings out a harmonic vocality to its tone, not unlike the Juggernaut’s, with its push-pull tone pot performing a similar function. With the Juggernaut, the push-pull tone, allied to a roasted maple neck and fretboard, offers an abundance of trebly presence, while the capability for low-end powerchord musclework remains undiminished.
The San Dimas remains the shredder’s choice, yet its traditionally clunky heel is no match for the likes of Schecter’s immaculate set-neck joint, nor the unobtrusive designs on its Jackson and Sterling counterparts.
THE DEFINITION ACROSS ALL OF THESE GUITARS IS REMARKABLE