Ah yes, the shielded wire is superior…I got that from your original post. I thought there was something more in the wiring schematic that you thought I needed to copy, because they do seem to use a slightly different schematic, too…would love a link to an MIJ schematic..in all my searching, have yet to see one…only vintage style and common mods to that.timtam wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 12:13 amShielded conductors in the original MIJ wiring.
Your guitar cable to the amp is a shielded single conductor. Your internal guitar wiring should be too. That's why the Japanese chose it - standard electronics practice for low level signals. To protect them from external sources of interference.
Agreed, shielded wire is technically better. However, I don’t think in this application it’s optimal, nor elegant. Here is why….If you look at the wiring in the MIJ, the use of shielded cable requires each end point to be connected to ground…otherwise it’s useless. That’s 8 additional potential points of failure I’m unnecessarily introducing into my wiring. In fact, if you look closely to the MIJ in my pic, that’s exactly what happened on the 3-way. The solder joint was bad and the wire too taut and was detached. So basically there was no shielding happening at all! Also, there isn’t much space for adding additional grounds points by the rhythm switch.
That is the beauty of vintage style wiring. All the components ground directly to the pickguard shield except the pickups and rhythm cap. Only 2 total ground fault possibilities (3 once you include the ground to the vibrato). Also, as you noted, shielded wire is not even necessary since I can achieve the same effect rather easily by shielding the cavity and connecting it to the pickguard shield.
All that aside, the MIJ I bought (with Novaks already installed) sounded dull and lifeless and had no range with the pots. I thought I made my first purchase mistake. With my new rewire, the guitar now sounds alive, dynamic, is dead quiet, and a joy to play. The CTS pots allow for way more control over the tonal variation this guitar is now capable of…oh and to reiterate the reason I reopened this thread to begin with…EYGuitar parts were crappy…don’t waste your money like I did…