The ARIA 1802t/1803t - EPIPHONE ET 270 DATABASE

[TchikiSteph]

Hi there.

As the little ARIA 1802t I bought 3 years ago has became my favorite guitar ever, I wanted to gather the information I could find about those guitars, on this forum and on the rest of the internet.

SPECS on Matsumoku site (bottom of the page)





SPECS and historical facts in french:





KOYL scoring the white - Quite a lot of information:





KOYL's orange 1802t





MIKETHEMOD's COLLECTION:





PICS and INFORMATION on a french forum, cool little video on page 3:





PACAFELIZ's 1803t:





Nice page about the DOMINO OLYMPIC:





ELECTRA SUSTAINER scored by MAGE:





A UNIVOX branded 1802-like





Nice NATURAL REFIN:





LUDOBAG's REFIN with speed-frets





Ben's MOTORIK I & II using the same great tremolo/tailpiece unit:





Restoration of KOYL's white 1802t





Ben's EROS restoration






An interesting (ended) trade for a Epiphone ET 270 showing the two different woods used for the bodies.





Famous pic showing Kurt COBAIN with his Epiphone ET270.






HUNTERS - Nice band from Brooklyn - massive use of ET 270 and 1802t

http://huntershunters.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Nice video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo-4N31R" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... re=related

[TchikiSteph]

To be continued...

[Spellcaster]

I owned an identical Matsumoku guitar back in the 70's that was branded "Toledo".

This is one I rescued from a barn about two years ago. It was just a bare body and neck and it was challenging to find all the pieces to complete it. It's a "Raven", although I still haven't found a headstock badge....

[TchikiSteph]

Nice one ! Thanks for the input !

What kind of tremolo arm do you use on that one ? I've got 2 of these guitars and only one original trem bar, so I'd be glad to know about any replacement arm.

[Pacafeliz]

i've got another Aria branded one, but it's in the "for sale" section (you'll be able to access it once you have 50 posts)



Pat.

[TchikiSteph]

I have always wondered how those strat-like pups sound compared to the classic matsumoku pups.
But I think that a huge part of the interesting sound of those guitars don't come from the pickups.
When you try those guitars unplugged, you realize that they sound amazing. The sound is loud, full, rich...
I will definitely try to put high quality pickups on my #2.

By the way, here is my #1, perfect guitar, my all times favorite.

[adamlunt]

Throw a Fender neck on it and its got potential

[Spellcaster]

These guitars are 25" scale so changing necks isn't an option.

[TchikiSteph]

These guitars are 25" scale so changing necks isn't an option.

Indeed ! And in fact those necks are already very good, when the frets are not damaged.
Even the tuners are quite ok ! Almost everything is good to go.

The only issues in my opinion are the pickups and the circuit. There is something definitely sexy but unuseable about them.
In order to provide the "Full bass/Strangled bass" switching option, those guitars came with a 25K vol pot ! On a guitar with bad resonance this pot value would give a styrofoam sound, weak and muffled. On this one it still works, and it's part of the velvet-50's-magic thing, but the guitar sounds way better with a 250k or 500k pot. And if you have to swap guitars during a show without touching the settings, you definitely have to get rid of this 25k pot.

I wonder if every generation of 1802T/1803T/ET270 came with that 25k vol pot.

[Spellcaster]

If anybody's in need of a vibrato bar for one of these, there's an eBay seller called "ez-pz=parts" that's selling a nice looking reproduction. He's got an auction going right now, and there are four left....

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/261098253942?ssP ... 1423.l2649

[s_mcsleazy]

no one brought up justin trotsper (s.p?) epi?

[TchikiSteph]

If anybody's in need of a vibrato bar for one of these, there's an eBay seller called "ez-pz=parts" that's selling a nice looking reproduction. He's got an auction going right now, and there are four left....

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/261098253942?ssP ... 1423.l2649

Damn ! Too late I'm afraid. Tha auction ended a few hours ago.
And I DO need one of those.

I guess they will have some more available soon, I'll try to mail them to be sure.

[Jay944]

Deleted.

[Shorty]

I wonder if every generation of 1802T/1803T/ET270 came with that 25k vol pot.

IRRC, they indeed did all were using low impedance pups. I can't seem to recall if they only used 25kΩ on them, though.

Hmm from what I see on Picafeliz's 1803t it looks like the pots on my ET-270 which are indeed 500k. B taper if I remember correctly.

That is very true what you said about playing them unplugged. They have quite a bit of volume and you can really feel the whole body resonate I was in aww when I first stringed mine up

[antisymmetric]

There's a Univox UC-3 for sale here in NZ at the moment, with wiring mods along the lines of Acme Guitar Works Strat "Blender" circuit....