crunchee Posted April 20, 2022 Posted April 20, 2022 The 'B' in 'NBGD' stands for 'budget'. I Purchased it last week from DGS, got it via UPS yesterday. I've given up trying to cut and paste photos for the time being, after trying to do it with the 'sold' DGS Partscaster from yesterday via Imgur: https://reverb.com/item/53683087-aex-520-black-recent It's basically the lesser-known sibling to the AEX502, the difference being that the 520 uses mini-hums, and the 502 uses P-90-style PUs. I suspect some of you may have seen the 502 before, especially orange ones, the brochure below shows a 'snapshot' of what looks to me like the whole Yamaha AEX line: https://usa.yamaha.com/files/download/brochure/0/320200/aex520.pdf Even though it has a bolt-on neck, it sounds and plays nice IMO. DGS called it 'recent', but every online source I can find online says they were Made In Taiwan from 2000 to 2002. The body (except for the top) is alder, and the center 'sound block' (in which the PUs and the TOM is mounted on/into) is actually a solid part of the body back (the body is factory routed for it), not a separate glued piece of wood...nice design touch! The bridge mini-hum is a bit on the bright side by itself (probably no surprise there), but the neck PU sounds really nice, and so does having both PUs 'on' at the same time. And yes, it has an 'acoustic voice', which is bright and kinda boxy, especially since the top is flat (not arched) and the body is only about 1 3/4" thick. Two unusual things I noticed about this guitar: The top appears to be spruce (the grain is pretty evident even with the black finish, like it can be often on spruce-topped acoustics), not maple like the above 'spec sheet'/brochure says. From looking at the photos of the 'Brown Sunburst' version on the 'spec sheet', that one may (or may not) have a spruce top, too. The second thing I noticed, is that the 502 appears to use P-90-type PUs with non-adjustable for height (unless you want to shim them) 'dog ear' style covers, instead or regular P-90 types...kinda odd, as the mini-hums on the 520 have 'conversion' style mountings, and it looks to me like a regular P-90 could drop right into the existing PU routing on the body. Has anybody here owned or played either the 520 or 502 before? Inquiring minds (me) want to know!
JGale Posted April 20, 2022 Posted April 20, 2022 No, but I have been eyeing them for a long time. Do tell us (me) more as you get aquainted.
geoff_hartwell Posted April 21, 2022 Posted April 21, 2022 Great score! Love me some budget players. Looks like the dog ears on the 502 are purely aesthetic, for nostalgia factor. Every few years I get a guitar with p-90s, remember they don’t like me and sell it- I’d be way more likely to keep the one with mini hums, haha Enjoy!
crunchee Posted April 22, 2022 Author Posted April 22, 2022 Found this article online after my original post...interesting, as it appears the guitar series is 'Will Ray Bottom Feeder' approved, or at least the sibling 502 is. And, from what the photo in the article shows (and I didn't know about it until I saw this article), it turns out the 'dogears' are somewhat aesthetic, as there's height-adjustment screws located/hidden within the 'dogear' areas of the pickups, which I didn't notice in other photos before. It had me fooled, I learn something new every day, whether I want to or not: https://www.premierguitar.com/gear/will-rays-bottom-feeder-1999-yamaha-aex-502
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