I love my Masters Cross. But I have also read about Stelling owners changing the tone ring to Stelling's archtop. Can you tell me if you did this and how you felt about the difference and whether you feel it was worth the money??
7 Comments |
 | From Greylock to Bean Blossom says:
8/4/2013 4:22:32 PM
I saw a boy playing on stage at the last bean blossom gospel jubilee with a red fox that he had Geoff change over to a archtop. It sounded good. not as good as Ralph's granada but better than most archtops out there now. had a great 4th string. Maybe you could call Geoff and ask him who the young man was and you could contact him then.
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 | kmwaters says:
8/4/2013 5:48:01 PM
Not that critical. But my thoughts are that walnut is mellow, and going to archtop might just defeat the purpose of getting walnut. I have a maple ESS already. So I guess my real question was would the archtop get me closer to maple sound since it does make things "brigher" in the words of most people.
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| From Greylock to Bean Blossom says:
8/4/2013 6:49:51 PM
ken,
I am just going to throw a thought at you. I love archtops. have two of them and a bellflower flathead. but sometimes archtops get to tinny and shallow (IMO) especially on the 1st & 2nd string. Again imo, the best sounding archtop ever was Ralph's granada and imo its higher strings were characterized by being very crisp while still having full tone and he had a beautiful richness in his 4th strings that a lot of archtops lose. the favorite archtop I have is a mahogany neck with a lacewood rim. So I guess I am saying that maybe with the walnut you could get the best of both worlds. Ask Geoff who he did that conversion for and see if that player has some sound files.
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 | banjomule says:
8/5/2013 3:46:18 PM
I haven't switched over a flathead Stelling to an archtop, but I do own one of each. I have a flathead walnut Staghorn with the 3 ply Stew-Mac rim and an archtop maple Golden Cross with the 3 ply Cooperman. Both banjos are set-up with the tailpiece roughly parallel to the head and have pretty much equal (and outstanding) volume across all 5 strings.
I's say the biggest difference is the pop I get in pull-offs on the archtop maple. The maple archtop also has more note seperation, where the walnut flathead sounds a little muddier.
They both sound like Stellings.
Check out Jon Eric on youtube (he's also a member here). If his videos dont make you want a walnut archtop nothing will!
You might also PM PatrickP here on the hangout. He has made the flathead to archtop switch on the same banjo. I know he kept the archtop ring in it.
One great thing about Stelling is that you can trade your ring in for an archtop for a pretty reasonable fee and Geoff will keep your old ring if you ever decide you want to switch it back.
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| kmwaters says:
8/5/2013 5:58:50 PM
Thanks guys. I will have to think about this one. It is not as though I am unhappy with the Masters Cross as is. Just curious about the archtop feature. Maybe.............
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| From Greylock to Bean Blossom says:
8/5/2013 8:04:18 PM
Ken,
You are in a tough situation. I remember Mark Twian's comment. "I have always smoked cheap cigars and drank cheap whiskey and have never been disappointed."
Fortunately or unfortunately you are getting about as far away from the cheap stuff as you can get and...
ken
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| kmwaters says:
8/7/2013 12:57:03 PM
Yeah - very fortunate to have the MC in the barn. It keeps my Gibson ESS company. Stable mates.
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