Tone of the Fender Jazzmaster / Jaguar thimble?

[DrippyReverbTremolo]

I replaced an aftermarket no-brand set of thimbles with a regular set of Fender thimbles, while in the proces of having my JM refinished (thread in the Mods&Projects section).

The Fender ones were much heavier and presumably steel (because they were magnetic). They were also 25 euro... wtf.

Anyway, I put the guitar back together using the old set of strings. Same set up (measured everything with a micrometer before diassembly). Same amp, same settings. First thing I thought was: it has a punchier, deeper sound.

Anyone ever noticed something similar after changing thimbles?

[timtam]

There's probably a greater chance that something else changed in disassembly/re-assembly of the guitar. Or your auditory short-term memory is playing tricks on you. One of the key things that has come out of the last several decades of complex measurements of solid-body electric guitars (mostly by independent scientists Fleischer, Zollner, and Pate; no US manufacturer does such measurements) is the large number of things that can exert a sonic effect - not always, but at least sometimes (so the "everything matters" you often hear people say is not quite correct - everything does not always matter. At least the old notion of "if it's not the pickups it must be the wood" is long gone !). Many of those things are not well-known to players, and not easy to check. So an "otherwise-identical" guitar is hard to be 100% sure of.

There is only a "pin-joint" between the bridge height grub screw and the thimble. So it seems unlikely for that to vary in a way that might affect the proportion of string vibrations reflected back to the string to be seen by the pickups (the mechanism by which bridges exert a sonic effect; the commonly-heard notion of "transfer of vibrations to the body" is physics nonsense). That's assuming there is good screw-thimble contact at that pin joint (it's not unheard of to find rocking bridges where that is not the case - for example where people don't actually realize that there are height screws inside the posts). I know of no measurements of screw/thimble vibration physics on the rocking bridge. There is however some evidence that the height of ABR-1 posts on a Gibson can affect the extent of string vibration losses at particular frequencies (that go to vibrate the posts at their air gaps) - see ch7 of Zoller's "Physics of the Electric Guitar". So it's not impossible ...

[DrippyReverbTremolo]

There's probably a greater chance that something else changed in disassembly/re-assembly of the guitar. Or your auditory short-term memory is playing tricks on you. One of the key things that has come out of the last several decades of complex measurements of solid-body electric guitars (mostly by independent scientists Fleischer, Zollner, and Pate; no US manufacturer does such measurements) is the large number of things that can exert a sonic effect - not always, but at least sometimes (so the "everything matters" you often hear people say is not quite correct - everything does not always matter. At least the old notion of "if it's not the pickups it must be the wood" is long gone !). Many of those things are not well-known to players, and not easy to check. So an "otherwise-identical" guitar is hard to be 100% sure of.

There is only a "pin-joint" between the bridge height grub screw and the thimble. So it seems unlikely for that to vary in a way that might affect the proportion of string vibrations reflected back to the string to be seen by the pickups (the mechanism by which bridges exert a sonic effect; the commonly-heard notion of "transfer of vibrations to the body" is physics nonsense). That's assuming there is good screw-thimble contact at that pin joint (it's not unheard of to find rocking bridges where that is not the case - for example where people don't actually realize that there are height screws inside the posts). I know of no measurements of screw/thimble vibration physics on the rocking bridge. There is however some evidence that the height of ABR-1 posts on a Gibson can affect the extent of string vibration losses at particular frequencies (that go to vibrate the posts at their air gaps) - see ch7 of Zoller's "Physics of the Electric Guitar". So it's not impossible ...

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I do know what you mean about the many variables and the almost impossibility of control (but still wishing we could do double-blind randomized experiments). What strikes me most about this experience was noticing a difference without expecting one, or even giving it much thought beforehand. When guitar tinkerers swap bridges and pickups etc. (and spending money while doing it) they want and expect to hear an improvement (to justify the expense).