Jaguar Wiring

[Goober1206]

Quick question. Why does the battery negative connect to the jacks regular ground when in other active basses such as a deluxe jazz it connects to a separate jack ground point? I actually think the separate jack ground isnt necessary if it works like it does in the Jaguar, but I was hoping someone here (line6man) Could explain it.

[line6man]

I'm really not familiar with Jaguars at all, but my guess would be one of two things. It could be like the early Stingrays that were just "on" all the time, or, perhaps there is a dedicated power switch? (Maybe the active/passive switch switches the battery?)

Unless you are doing something to switch the positive terminal of the battery, it would always be preferable to connect the negative terminal of the battery to the ring terminal of the output jack, because if you ground it instead, the preamp will always draw current from the battery.

[walterw]

are you sure the jag isn't like normal active basses, where the 9V negative does go to the ring terminal of the jack?

if the active/passive switch turned the preamp on and off, i'd expect you would get nasty power-up noise when you switched it on. (also, it would have to be wired so half the switch bypassed the preamp while the other half switched it off.)

i re-wired one of these a year or two ago, with an EMG BTS preamp, dimarzio area J pickups, and true-bypass passive switching. it was a major improvement and a PITA, but i don't remember the preamp power being "unusual" in regards to the jack wiring.

[Goober1206]

Originally Posted by line6man

I'm really not familiar with Jaguars at all, but my guess would be one of two things. It could be like the early Stingrays that were just "on" all the time, or, perhaps there is a dedicated power switch? (Maybe the active/passive switch switches the battery?)

Unless you are doing something to switch the positive terminal of the battery, it would always be preferable to connect the negative terminal of the battery to the ring terminal of the output jack, because if you ground it instead, the preamp will always draw current from the battery.

I just looked at a schematic. The ground system isn't grounded to the jack in an original Jaguar. Might I suggest you look at a schematic and elaborate lol That doesn't make sense to me!