I stopped by TV Jones on Friday with my bud Mino Christante from Shunyata Research. Interestingly TV Jones and Shunyata are in the same building, about ten minutes from my house. Tom Jones was super busy getting ready for NAMM but in spite of that he received us warmly, got us some coffee and turned us loose in the TV Jones' audition room. Mino has had his eye on the new Spectra Sonic Baritone C Melody guitar that Tom has just released. He and Tom played around with it and Mino's Tode a couple weeks ago. I happened to have my Tode in the car and so we brought it in and plugged the Baritone prototype into it. I shot a bit of iPhone video as Mino test drove the rig one more time, to further tempt himself:
The new guitar is simply beautiful. The fit and finish and attention to detail is as good or better than my Gibson ES-335, and the tone of the semi hollow alder body and Magnatone neck pickup is reminiscent of a sexy woman with a deep voice. Tom's pickups are really wonderful sounding. Romo put a set of TV Jones pickups in his Gretsch Country Gentleman Jr. a while back and it's become his favorite electric. He was about to sell it before he put the new pickups in. I have my eye on a T-90 neck pickup. I just need to find the right guitar to put it in. Too bad Gibson came down on Warmoth and made them stop selling the solid body L5 copy - woulda been perfect.
BTW the Tode is bone stock with the exception of a leather handle.
Video may look a little odd - I was holding my phone in an awkward position to get the shot and it was wavering a lot. Tried the stabilizer feature on you tube. Not perfect due to artifacts, but not bad.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2013, 11:25:04 AM by Doc B. »
Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President For Life
Bottlehead Corp.
