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KTS Titanium Bridge on my Jazz, ehh wow?!

Bass4LifeRS

Bass4LifeRS

Oct 18, 2005
3,016
1,973
Norway
#1
I am officially a bass nerd :D

I bought a KTS Titanium bridge as a direct replacement on my Fender jazz bass (Fretless jaco-type.) Right now I can't remember how I found out about them, but somehow I did, and I bought one because I was way too curious to let it go (GAS).

Ok so the deal is that it looks more or less like a normal standard jazz bass bridge, but it's made of Titanium (used in airplane construction) . So the hope was (and their claim) that it'd focus up the notes with definition and clarity.

I took the very un-scientific test first of putting my ear to the bass body and play the open strings to listen to the harmonic structure of the tones. Then put the ear at the back of the neck and really listened to the character. I could hear a lot of overtones, not nescessarily musical ones. This is normal though, I hear it from a lot of basses, with some or just one string more so than the others. Know what I mean?

Anyway, I screwed on the new bridge and performed the same tests. Honestly, I believe I heard more fundamental, and the string vibrated stronger in my ear. I heard no volatile harmonics, just a stable string sound, and a pure tone. Oh btw, all of this was with no amplification, I haven't plugged it in yet. This is acoustics. To me, and imho a pleasant surprise. Wow!
Incredibly pricey I know.


Anyone else tried it?


(Oh yeah I remember now, basspartsresource had saddles-only on their webshop, that's where I heard of the KTS first.)

(Mine says PR-03SP/WB1 on the package)
 
#3
Dropped right in, took 3 mins to change it :) I should take a pic, will edit one in. ---> Here we go
KTS01.gif


and

KTS02.gif
 
#6
azzyrazzy said:
What this material does is that it absorbs very little vibration (used in airplane construction) because of it's dense atomic structure.
Click to expand...

You are totaly wrong here, sorry. Titanium absorbs vibrations extremely good, and that is one of the reasons it is used in aeroplane constructions. But mostly because it is very light and yet strong, as "ogrossman" wrote.

azzyrazzy said:
7 times harder than steel :p
Click to expand...

Oh no, wrong again. Titanium is less hard than steel, but has about as high strength as steel. Think of it as "the rubber of metals".

On a swedish bass forum there was a guy that said the same things as you do about his new titanium bridge. It was so awesome, and so on. But then he did an A/B comparsion and put up sound files for us to listen. And yes, as expected the titanium bridge did sound less good than the original. The top clarity was dampened out.

You are being fooled by your expectations [edit: that is what I believe, don't know]. Titanium is not some kind of miracle.

Edit: Hey, you are norwegian, you can read his thread! Link Removed
And the lot of you can listen to the clips in the first post and guess what is what.
 
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#7
pilotjones said:
Not to rain on your parade, but if you are getting more fundamental and more volume in general this way, the most likely explanation is that you are unconsciously pressing the bass tighter to your ear. And/or plucking the string harder.
Click to expand...

It's hard to explain what I heard, but I tried and failed :D But I do believe I heard a change, not in volume, but in character. At least I think I did hehe. I tried really hard to stay focused on the task. :help:

ogrossman said:
Titanium is about half the density (57%) of steel but it has similar strength.
Click to expand...
You're probably right. I just remembered it wrong then, thanks for clearing that up.

Makten said:
You are totaly wrong here, sorry. Titanium absorbs vibrations extremely good, and that is one of the reasons it is used in aeroplane constructions. But mostly because it is very light and yet strong, as "ogrossman" wrote.
Click to expand...
Ah so I had the info backwards. That's what happens when you're too hasty in writing on TB :) Glad to see you believe in miracles, though this bridge is nothing but a piece of metal, sorry. I heard what I heard, no expectations met/not met or
anything, all is good. I'd be interested in your reasoning for the dampened high end though. I haven't heard the bass amplified yet, nor recorded.
 
#8
Makten said:
Edit: Hey, you are norwegian, you can read his thread! Link Removed
And the lot of you can listen to the clips in the first post and guess what is what.
Click to expand...

Don't post that here after I receive that thing!! Post BEFORE I order! :D
Edit I listened, but with the different volumes of the two recordings and variations in playing i found it deceiving and not comparable. Imo.
 
#9
Lets just say that I wan't people to know that titanium is theoretically NOT suitable for bridges. But if you are happy, you are happy! :-)

...and remember that what you think you hear isn't always what you actually hear. ;-)

azzyrazzy said:
Don't post that here after I receive that thing!! Post BEFORE I order! :D
Click to expand...
Well, lets hope that others think once again about ordering after having listened.

Edit I listened, but with the different volumes of the two recordings and variations in playing i found it deceiving and not comparable. Imo.
Click to expand...
And your test is comparable? How can you compare without recording? There is no way that you could remember exactly how it sounded before compared to after.
 
#10
Makten said:
And your test is comparable? How can you compare without recording? There is no way that you could remember exactly how it sounded before compared to after.
Click to expand...

I see you enjoy picking on me. My test was my own, for my ear, and I am just posting my impressions, not scientific evidence. I am thinking about deleting the thread because it turned out a bit ugly now.
 
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#12
azzyrazzy said:
I see you enjoy picking on me. My test was my own, for my ear, and I am just posting my impressions, not scientific evidence. I am thinking about deleting the thread because it turned out a bit ugly now.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry about that. You trust your ears, of course! But I really believe the KTS parts is just pure bogus. And I don't want people to waste their money, so I told my opinion on it, that's all. I'm sure you will have some company of others that share your experiences very soon. :p

Good night, I won't bother you more. Promise! Just remember that your ears don't tell the truth all the time.
 
#13
I must say, I am intrigued by all this.
After listening to the clips, I too find that clip 2 sounds muddy,but maybe it just has more body to it,or it adds less to the sound of the wooden construction and given the differences in the clips, I find it hard to discern what's what.
I am not aware of any player that uses titanium bridges ( well Anthony Jackson does reputedly have a titanium bridge installed).
I would love to try it.
I also find it possible that titanium works well with some basses, and well against others....
I personally dislike what brass bridges seem to do...
I guess for azzyrazzy it does something he likes
I'd really love to check it out.
:D
 
#14
In bike frames titanium is praised for it's ability to absorb and dampen vibration. Aluminum and to a lesser extent steel are known for their ability to transfer vibration.

I do like the way that bridge looks though :)
 
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#16
Some links here
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Oh yeah there it is, the root of my confusion about titanium on a bass, quoting: Why Titanium;
"The low internal damping factor of titanium is one of the most important features as good sounding metal. In another words, the most of wave motion created by strings vibration can be transferred to the guitar body without absorbing by the metal material. This happens because of unique hexagonal close-packed crystallization structure of titanium. Also, this characteristic of titanium stabilizes strings vibration. In addition, the metal which has less ratio of "E (traverse coefficient) / p (density)" is usually better for material to be used as audio equipment parts. In simpler wording, the light metal that is hard to bend is better material for audio parts. Titanium is the one of this feature."
 
#17
azzyrazzy said:
Some links here
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Click to expand...

:D

From the above results, in comparison with the conventional type, the sound pressure level gradually becomes smaller as the frequency increases with the newly development Ti bridge, and the envelopes of the frequencies show a gentle downward slope to the right. These results show that, in comparison with the conventional type, when the newly developed Ti bridge is used, the low sound region of the generated sound becomes wider, and the feeling of "depth" increases. From a comparison of audibility, in comparison with the ordinary type bridge, when the newly developed Ti bridge is used, there is an overall lengthening of sustain, and it is possible to obtain the effect of using a guitar body with good resonance, even when using an ordinary resonance body.
Click to expand...
 
#18
azzyrazzy said:
Some links here
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Oh yeah there it is, the root of my confusion about titanium on a bass, quoting: Why Titanium;
"The low internal damping factor of titanium is one of the most important features as good sounding metal. In another words, the most of wave motion created by strings vibration can be transferred to the guitar body without absorbing by the metal material. This happens because of unique hexagonal close-packed crystallization structure of titanium. Also, this characteristic of titanium stabilizes strings vibration. In addition, the metal which has less ratio of "E (traverse coefficient) / p (density)" is usually better for material to be used as audio equipment parts. In simpler wording, the light metal that is hard to bend is better material for audio parts. Titanium is the one of this feature."
Click to expand...

Interesting reading!
Pretty much the complete opposite to what has been said here before, isn't it?

Can anyone tell me of ONE first rate audio components company who actually do use titanium.
 
#19
azzyrazzy said:
This happens because of unique hexagonal close-packed crystallization structure of titanium. Also, this characteristic of titanium stabilizes strings vibration.
Click to expand...

I'm not picking on you azzy just this crazy market speech. Isn't "stabilizes string vibration" what you get when you mute a string?

Also is this just the plate or are the saddles and screws titanium?
 

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