Luxe

This is something I am definitely willing to try- Luxe repro caps. These are now available (including the Bumblebee version for Les Pauls) at Davis GMC, do contact them for price quotes.

The manufacturer aims to offer the user a very close manifestation of the original item so please do not expect an 'upgrade' of any kind but it should be your attempt to experience what Fender/ Gibson went through in their tone history. Also, do look forward to hear a marked difference as these minor components in your guitar only serve to differentiate your current experience.

Capacitors- do they matter much?

It seems that the cryptic component in our electric guitars are the tablet-sized capacitors which are hidden away at the tone pot. To those of us who had not ventured into the body cavities of our instruments, you might not know what is actually being discussed here... Anyway, a capacitor is an electrical component that stores energy in the electric field between a pair of plates (conductors) whose role in many electrical equipment is to store energy. To the average guitar dweeb, you need to know that this energy storage affects the output of your instrument. We hear this output over at our amp as the sound of our instrument so having a capacitor in our guitars affect the sound even when they are left wide open ie. your tone pot dialled up to the max. 

However, do note that the 'energy storage' function is a fundamental understanding of how the capacitor works. In our guitars, the energy storage is used to differentiate frequencies & the general rule here is, the bigger the capacitor value, the deeper sounding it gets. But let's not head to the shops fervently to acquire these capacitors because we know they are indeed affordable components for our guitar mod adventures- some of  our ears cannot detect the tonal differences.

RGD321- oranged!

I like everything about my RGD321 so there's no modding it, just an Orange Drop (capacitor) addition. You can see the Indonesia assembly here; things are kept tidy under the cover. Despite this quality put-together, people won't hold Indonesian craftsmanship in high regards. The mention of Made-in-Indonesia would probably be met by an obligatory sighing & maybe some snide remarks thereafter.

Orange vs Mallory

I'm an avid Orange Drop fan. Heard good tones coming from its application & didn't look back ever since...

...but I'm always open to options, never to shut out the competitor just because I embrace a certain product or brand name. I've acquired the Mallory cap after talking to a bass player who has one in his bass. He asked me if I fancy an overall brighter tone for my instrument even after having the tone pot turned down some notches. My reply was a practical response- some of the instruments I possess will benefit from such a tonal manifestation so I decided to give the Mallory a try but had misplaced it for nearly a year. That's how it is with my grey cells these days; unless there's a specific documentation to help me locate some things, I'd most probably forget where they were placed in the first place.

Anyway, I'd like to share the performances of these capacitors in anticipation of such queries, knowing there'd be interested parties, of course. The Orange Drop will benefit those of us who prefer a wide tonal sweep; from very bright to very woolly. The Mallory on the other hand, introduces the woolly factor in liberal doses only. That would mean the Mallory has a limited tonal application, yes? It all depends on the intended application. If your instrument is inherently boomy sounding, the Mallory would help attend to some balance so that your tone won't mud-out once you put your tone knob into action. Maybe that's the reason why the bass player I talked to has a Mallory in his instrument- to ensure the bass benefits from some brightness since churning out bottom end isn't a problem.

I'm also not ruling out the fact that some of us can't really tell the difference after hearing these capacitors in action.