If the Tele is perfect as it is, why are there six saddle bridges and new pickups? If the Strat is perfect as it is, why do we have a boutique parts market at all? Aftermarket bridges exist to address issues, and offer options for mass produced products that often aren't geared toward specific wants/needs. A big company won't bottleneck production simply to obtain a booteek bridge on every model. If they did, they'd charge you extra for it (Fender CS?). Leo made things simply and efficiently for the masses, a person during those early times who wanted 'perfection' would of bought a hand-made archtop. Same today, buy a cheap Fender or get a Bilt, Jennings, etc.Elixxrx66 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 11, 2019 10:54 amIf the Jazzmaster is perfect the way it is then why do things like Mastery Bridge and the Stay-Trem exist? I have read in thread after thread on this site of people complaining about the problem with the original bridge as well as the vibrato and time and time again the answer is for these people to spend another $300 to make a $2k guitar playable. Seems rather odd to me. Someone posted in a response to an earlier thread about the CP that the original JM were designed the way they were for a specific reason and it should not be changed. I would just like to say what Leo Fender originally designed the original JM for turned out to be a complete failure. It was musicians and bands playing types of music that Leo Fender never designed it for that has kept it going. Why is it perfectly okay for you to fix these design flaws by spending an extra $300 but it’s not okay for Fender to try and fix these problems?
Also, the guitar playing paradigms have shifted over time, and it's not just for the offsets or because of them. Players bent the electric guitar to their will, not the other way around. Failure? Offsets are a success, the underdog story. We know Leo didn't play, and I could not care less about Jazzmasters successfully playing jazz--I don't like guitar stereotypes in the first place. The name is the only misguided effort, but also the quirk of Fender--ol Leo could never imagine what his guitars would do over the decades. Certainly all the names were stuck in the era they were created in: Tele--new fangled television, Strat--stratosphere jet age, jazz--avant garde bop, --Jaguar--uh, um..Mustang--wylde stallions, I dunno.
If one wants to be pragmatic about it, then one has the option of avoiding Fender offsets altogether. If one likes the aesthetics, buying custom is an option. DIY also up in that mix. Guitar players are a conservative bunch, and finicky as hell. Put an offset guitar out with a 7.25" radius--complaints. 9.5" ---complaints. TOM bridge ---pitchforks. One can't win it seems with such spec focused folks. No harm in any of this, of course. Fender the profit making company has to both offer the vintage based offset (AVs, AOs) and also appeal to those consumers who want stop tails and humbuckers. The online forum has a way of amplifying every little guitar nuance and exaggerates every factor of playing outside of actual playing. So yeah, it's been overblown.
Bottom line here is that Fender doesn't owe anyone an over engineered Mastery bridge solution. Some people don't want that. As for addressing the offset issues, Fender has made multiple efforts to do exactly that. AVs are gone, but when they were last around they had an angle neck pocket--the only thing needed in my opinion, because I get along with the stock bridge, especially after they started slotting the bridge height screws to prevent self leveling.