Tokai Als-62 real or fake?

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Namdoan13

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Hi folks, I've just purchased a Tokai ALS62 in goldtop finish. The price after sale was about $400us dollar. The guitar arrived a few hour ago and I noticed some weird thing. It has mahogany and maple body (looks like 4 pieces), plastics feels cheap, the action is sky high... I must restring it and did a setup (2mm low E - 1.5mm high E), adjust the truss rod for a better relief, but there's still a lot of buzzing.
Pickups sounds lack of bass. The finish looks fine but inlays and tunning machine handles are wayyyy too dull.
Could anyone please help me with this, is it a counterfeit Tokai or a normal Chinese made Tokai?
Images will be posted soon.
Sorry for my terrible English :)
 
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mdvineng said:
Don't know any mij Tokais like that.
Pictures and serial number required.

I've just posted pictures in the comment section. It's a MIC one.
 
mdvineng said:
Don't know any mij Tokais like that.
Pictures and serial number required.

I've just posted pictures in the comment section. It's a MIC one.
 
Looks like a 4 piece mahogany back. The piece you are calling maple looks like a very curly piece of mahogany.

I don’t know my Chinese Tokais. If it is, then it’s an entry level model as most of them seem to be.
 
Sigmania said:
Looks like a 4 piece mahogany back. The piece you are calling maple looks like a very curly piece of mahogany.

I don’t know my Chinese Tokais. If it is, then it’s an entry level model as most of them seem to be.

Thanks for replying sir. Do you have any information about the pots? Stock pups are too harsh to my taste so I want to swap it for a pair of Duncans but have no idea if the pots are 500k or lower.
 
No idea. From what I hear folks normally swap out the pickups on those Chinese Love Rocks.
 
Pots will be OK for the SD's as will the caps. Pots will be marked with the value for a double check.
 
mdvineng said:
Pots will be OK for the SD's as will the caps. Pots will be marked with the value for a double check.

Thanks for replying :)
I've found out those pots are 250k. Maybe I will replace them with 500k ones and see if the pups sound brighter or not. Played some GN'R and Led Zep songs and it sounded not too bad, just have to lower the pups, tweaks the pole screws a little bit and some adjustments on the EQ pedal. I'm in short of money right now so the Duncan pups can wait...
 
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As the value of the volume pot increases, you will see more highs when the volume control is on full, but you will also see more highs rolled off when the volume is backed off. In other words, if you were to use a 500K pot in a Strat, where you would normally see a 250K volume pot, the guitar would be brighter with the volume pot full on, but would lose quite a bit of the highs as you backed off on the volume. With a 1Meg pot, both of those effects would be more pronounced. (That is why you frequently see a treble bypass cap, or a bypass cap/resistor in a single coil guitar with a 500K or 1Meg volume pot.)

The same holds true for humbuckers, but humbuckers are better able to withstand it. Using a 250K volume pot with a humbucker is not all that unusual. As scottl pointed out, Gene Baker did it with many guitars. Gibson has been using 300K volume pots in their production guitars (not the Historics) for quite a few years. Vintage guitars used 500K for both volume and tone. I believe modern Gibsons still use a 500K pot for tone. The net effect of using a 250K or 300K volume pot with a humbucker is a meatier sounding tone, with less treble rolloff as you back off on the volume.
 
mdvineng said:
Copied from another site

As the value of the volume pot increases, you will see more highs when the volume control is on full, but you will also see more highs rolled off when the volume is backed off. In other words, if you were to use a 500K pot in a Strat, where you would normally see a 250K volume pot, the guitar would be brighter with the volume pot full on, but would lose quite a bit of the highs as you backed off on the volume. With a 1Meg pot, both of those effects would be more pronounced. (That is why you frequently see a treble bypass cap, or a bypass cap/resistor in a single coil guitar with a 500K or 1Meg volume pot.)

The same holds true for humbuckers, but humbuckers are better able to withstand it. Using a 250K volume pot with a humbucker is not all that unusual. As scottl pointed out, Gene Baker did it with many guitars. Gibson has been using 300K volume pots in their production guitars (not the Historics) for quite a few years. Vintage guitars used 500K for both volume and tone. I believe modern Gibsons still use a 500K pot for tone. The net effect of using a 250K or 300K volume pot with a humbucker is a meatier sounding tone, with less treble rolloff as you back off on the volume.

Thank you for the info. I thought the pots are 250k because it's bottom wrote '16k Series' and I googled it, some page on the internet said it's 250k but I've just found out that manufacturer also has 500k pots. Anw, I've just ordered CTS 500k pots, hope it will make a difference.
 

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