Alas, it seems my supply of cheap Chinese stuff to review has dried-up completely. If fact, all the cheap Chinese stuff has dried-up - just look at eBay. Oh well, I don't need another "Phas" pedal anyway. A number of the products have disappeared from Amazon as well, but the pedals are still in stock, and they're even cheaper now.
"Vintage Phas" on the right The sad thing is, these are actually not bad!At least Home Depot still loves me - check out my free workbenchI was really looking forward to getting one of these
Well, I ordered up one of these headless bridges for about $60 shipped, and after three weeks, here it is:
As you can see, I disassembled one of the gear mechanisms. The one-piece gear and spool appear to be solid brass, held in the bracket with a c-clip. The gears actually work surprisingly well, smooth, with just a little slop that would disappear under string tension. Everything is also lubricated, which I did not expect from China. I am surprised, the quality of materials and design of this unit is much better than I expected. You can see how the knobs pull out on the shafts for easier adjustment.
Today I got my set of Alice bass strings, 105-85-65-45. They were packed in individual sealed plastic sleeves, similar to every other kind of string. The diameters are all within 0.001" of spec. The lengths are as follows:
First, I am bound to state that I received this product at no cost for review. Having gotten that out of the way ...
This is a 2-amp negative-tip 9-volt power supply for guitar effects pedals. This supply has more than enough power to drive multiple effects pedals, and the 8-way split "Daisy Chain" cable lets you do just that. You can neatly power up your entire pedal board with a single connection.
This is my favorite truss rod design. It is not my most advanced, but it is the simplest to build. Although it is a single-acting rod, a little forethought in routing the channel makes it reversible, effectively double-acting. That requires some disassembly of the guitar, but you only need to change the direction of the rod once or twice in the life of an instrument, until it settles in to a mature shape.