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I have a Heritage Standard H-137 that I purchased in 2020. It was built in 2018. The P90's in this guitar (I think) are Lollars. The guitar sounds great to my ears and I have no plans to change out the pick ups. A great axe!

Never sell. My youngest daughter has dibs on it.

Against my better judgement, I’m gonna try one of these. I will report back.

Well I finally had time to dive into this guitar today. I have mixed feelings about it. The construction/fit and finish are quite good. Fretwork is pretty good too. The electronics are very decent. I’m not exactly in love with the bridge pickup. I love the neck pickup. The push/pull coil taps are useless to me. I’ll never use them. But the pots have good taper (mini pots). The toggle switch is very tight. I’m able to get a pretty low action. There were 2 main problems. One, the tremolo springs rubbed the bottom of the cavity when you did a divebomb….thats not good!! So I had to take a wood file and file away some wood inside the trem cavity. Two, the Floyd would not stay in tune. Cheap springs!!!! I set it up for 9s. Came from the factory with 10a. !!! I bought a set of Floyd Rose noiseless springs….problem solved. The neck carve is a medium C. It’s close to a 60s neck. The satin finish is smooth as a baby’s bottom. Fast n smooth. The sculpted heel joint is great for upper register access. It’s light and quite resonant. Playability is quite good. Neck has almost no relief and sets up quite nicely. If I wasn’t a DIY person, I probably would’ve instantly boxed it back up for a refund. The springs rubbing on the back cavity, in my opinion, is a huge drop of the ball by QC! That is inexcusable, especially for a Guitar of that design and style! And is obviously a playability and Tone problem because when the springs rub against the wood like that, it obviously makes a really bad noise that disrupt the vibration of the strings! As far as the Tremolo not staying in tune, I think it was a combination of junk strings and bad springs. I put a nice little dab of BIG BENDS nut sauce on each pivot point of the Tremelo before I installed the new strings on it and between that and the new springs, I am not having any tuning issues at all. And I do some pretty heavy dive bombs with it. After a lot of TLC, this is actually a really nice guitar. Out of the box, it was not. And I blame Heritage for not checking for quality control issues, this Guitar was in Kalamazoo before it shipped off to me so they had every opportunity to double check the quality control of the Chinese factory, and obviously they chose not to! If you’re going to charge $1200 for a Chinese made guitar with the Heritage name on it, the QC needs to be A LOT BETTER!!!!

I also missed the inaugural meeting. Unfortunately, there were some issues at work that necessitated me being there. Didn’t get out to my first one until 2013. I also made it to the following, and final “Barn” year. Man those were sweet!

Rich, We went to different schools. My math is a little different. Every guitar made in the USA that a musician can't afford is a guitar not sold and not manufactured. In the 60's a teenager started out on a Kent and graduated to a Fender, Gibson or Guild. If a Fender, it was a Mustang the Gibson was single pickup Junior the guild a Starfire 3. What is the current price point for a Collins, Gibson, Taylor or Heritage made in the USA?

And they weighed a ton! My friend's 2x12 combo buckled my knees when I lifted it, I imagine the 4x10 combos weighed a bit too

I have purchased a couple of the Ascent+ models. Fit and finish are good. Played well out of the box. I think I paid $699 on sale. I have a 535 also. Well worth it.

Thanks for the report, Brent. Manny's must have delivered it pretty quickly. I've been looking at one of the H-150+ models but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Were the springs just too big for the cavity? It's strange that they would rub. I probably wouldn't get that model with the Floyd, so I wouldn't have that problem. I only have two guitars with trems, and one is decked. There other is my G&L Legacy but I don't really use the bar.

After a few weeks with this pedal, pairing it with different tube and solid state amps: I’m finding it most useful in front of a tube amp. Very warm overdrive. Thickens tone and gives it more weight, with just a bit of softness around the edges. Really nice. Not “transparent”, definitely colors your tone in the way intended. I’m sure I have not explored or mastered all it can do, and I haven’t used it as a “pedal in a box” straight to interface or PA, but I like it a lot used simply. Maybe because I’m an effects simpleton.

found locally at a killer price, picking it up this afternoon . . . the Deluxe Reverb will take a breather . . .

We saw Albert Lee a few years ago at the Acorn in Three Oaks. He was playing his signature guitars through an old Silverface Twin. It’s a small venue so the amp wasn’t jacked up much. It still sounded stellar, both clean and with pedals.

Wondering what one would need to pay to get a marvbird, not an assembly line 357?

last I heard was about $3.50 and a pack of smokes

There’s been one for sale near me for the last year. It’s a Silverface MV model that’s been completely refurbished. No affiliation. I’ll send you a PM

Very happy with the results with round wounds. Definitely more of the pickup character comes out. Especially with guitar volume at max or close.

Don’t get me wrong. There is no bigger cheerleader than me for Heritage-America. They are superior to the imported models. These are for the global market and getting a foothold in the more affordable area that Heritage never had from 225 Parsons St.

Every Chinese guitar sold is one less American guitar sold.

Those MusicMan amps were great.

$1200 isn't unreasonable. Not all Chinese shops are the same. An Eastman SB59 made in China is $2000. It's not the same guitar as an AliExpress Chibson Les Paul for $250. If they are using a genuine Floyd Rose 1000, that's a couple of hundred bills right there. It looks like they are using a traditional headstock, not a scarf joint. I do like the way they are doing the neck joint on the Ascent+.

Jags and Jazzmasters were designed for flatwounds . . . their whammy bar mechanisms like flats

The old surf sounds seem to use flatwounds with single coils. https://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/35423/

Well, there was no dragging, kicking, or screaming. She enjoyed those PSPs as much as I did.

He was THE BEST.

I saw Johnny Winter in a medium size club and he was playing through 2 Fender Twins with JBLs stacked on top of each other. That's 170 watts of power through 4 JBL 12s. It was loud. Good times.

You might also try a set of half rounds. You get much of the ringing of a round wound but the smoothness of a flatwound. I have a set on my 535. I got them after I tried half rounds on my bass. No more finger squeaks, but it sounded more like an old broken in set of roundwounds than the typical dullness of flatwounds. D'Addario makes them. $10 a set, so it's not like there's a major investment. 9-42s thru 12-52s so you have options. I tried them instead of using Elixers to quiet the finger noise. GHS calls them "Bright Flats". Same style as D'Addario.

This 2023 beauty has Duncan's stock .

A friend of mine bought a natural 575 from a Guitar Center years ago. When he got it, he found some neck issue that could not be corrected by adjustment. He took it to the legendary Aaron Cowles, who was doing some upscale work for Heritage at the time. Aaron told him the neck needs replacement. I don't recall the details. Aaron did the replacement. Here's an interview with Aaron. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/gibson-guitar-oral-histories/1/ Aaron died quite a few years ago. I ended up hanging on to the guitar for my friend but didn't play it. Yesterday he sold it to me without ever taking it to his home. If you are feeling sorry for him, consider he has more guitars than anyone else I know. So this is has Schallers. I scoped the innards. It's parallel braced (not all are). Aaron made the neck and but a plain ebony board on it. It's a 3 piece maple. The only piece he got from Heritage is the headstock overlay. My friend requested a five piece neck but Aaron recommended a 3 piece. Aaron fretted it. There are no nibs. That's true with other Aaron builds. Aaron was one of the best of the Kalamazoo luthiers yet a simple man to understand. He always had his pistol handy in shop. He charged very little for his hard work. His humble presentation contradicted his master skills at making guitars and mandolins. The guitar plays well. The neck is to me a medium C carve, maybe a medium plus. It sounds good.