Double Bass which kind of bridge adjuster is better?

[Sergio Barrozo]

I use an adjustable bridge with aluminum adjusters. I have noticed that the bridge height is always changing pretty much with weather changes.
What kind of adjuster is better for the sound transmission and is less subjetc to weather changes, brass, aluminum or ebony adjusters?

 

[Eric Hochberg]

If you go to Bob Gollihur's site, there is a link to a scientific study of bridge adjusters.

 

[CPike]

The adjusters are not responding to weather, your bass is - the adjusters are what you use to raise or lower your bridge in response to the weather changing. Opinions abound regarding adjuster materials, just do a search in the luthier/setup forums...

Chris

 

[damonsmith]

I switched to ebony from aluminum, I get a fuller, darker sound now, but I did loose a bit of punch.

 

[milomo]

THIS is what Jeff Bollbach has to say.

 

[Bob Branstetter]

If you go to Bob Gollihur's site, there is a link to a scientific study of bridge adjusters.

There have been a lot of discussions about that particular study. Several of the professional luthiers who post here are of the opinion that the study is fatally flawed and the conclusions made by the author can not be considered as typical or representative of what any particular type of adjusters will sound like on YOUR bass. If you use the TB search facility with the key words "scientific bridge study" you will find some of the many discussions on the subject.

 

[flatback]

Franz Moser titanium adjusters simply the best.

 

[bassist14]

Franz Moser titanium adjusters simply the best.

+1 for moser
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[John Sprague]

Franz Moser titanium adjusters simply the best.

Dang! At EUR 150, they better be pretty sweet!

I think the only thing that can be said for sure is that every adjuster sounds a bit different than the others. Please don't ask thread up or thread down, the server may crash.

 

[Damon Rondeau]

If you go to Bob Gollihur's site, there is a link to a scientific study of bridge adjusters.

To me, the single most interesting and useful aspect of that study was the measurement development work it did. The study is useless for generalization -- as are practically all initial studies in any branch of science and engineering you might name. It's interesting, though, to note the similarity in "tone profile" of all the various adjusters compared to the tone profile of no adjuster at all. Intriguing and begging for further study.

 

[Dave Whitla]

I think the adjusters, as with strings, will affect different basses slightly differently. I have had a bass with aluminum ones that sounded fine, and my bass now has ebony adjusters and I am also very pleased with the sound. I have never had the opportunity to compare adjusters on the same bass...

 

[Sergio Barrozo]

I asked a luthier friend of mine about ebony adjusters, and he said that these adjusters are more subject to wear than the metal or aluminum. The threads in the one you use are ok? Do you think they will last long?
I would like to try ebony adjusters. Lemur sells it, but the thread are larger than the aluminum and metal adjusters. If I install these in my bridge I cannot put back the aluminum adjusters.

 

[bonaventura]

Horst Gruenert in Penzberg, Bavaria (he built my bass) told me the story of how he was the "enemy" of bridge adjusters. It seemed to me that it was just against his grain to cut the bridge in two and expect that a substance other than wood could transfer the sound of the bass correctly. He took a bass with one of Moser's aluminum adjusters in the bridge to the official government testing office and had it tested for vibrations in comparison to a bass without an adjuster. The result, which surprised him and changed his mind, was that the bass with the adjuster did not lose any vibration. In fact, the bass with the adjuster evidenced BETTER transfer and was in fact louder. Horst, are you there....?

 

[Bob Branstetter]

I asked a luthier friend of mine about ebony adjusters, and he said that these adjusters are more subject to wear than the metal or aluminum. The threads in the one you use are ok? Do you think they will last long?
I would like to try ebony adjusters. Lemur sells it, but the thread are larger than the aluminum and metal adjusters. If I install these in my bridge I cannot put back the aluminum adjusters.

I've seen no evidence of ebony adjusters wearing any more than metal adjusters. I had one bridge with ebony adjusters on my personal bass for over twenty years. I'm sure I could take those adjuster out of that old bridge and put them in a new bridge and get many more years out of them if I wanted to do that. Wear on the adjusters themselves is seldom the problem with any type of adjusters. It's the threads in the maple bridge that fail and that doesn't happen very often with professionally installed adjusters.

 

[Silversorcerer]

To me, the single most interesting and useful aspect of that study was the measurement development work it did. The study is useless for generalization -- as are practically all initial studies in any branch of science and engineering you might name. It's interesting, though, to note the similarity in "tone profile" of all the various adjusters compared to the tone profile of no adjuster at all. Intriguing and begging for further study.

My reaction to that study is somewhere between this and Bob Branstetter's. If you don't try to extrapolate too much from the study, what is presented has some meaning, but it is difficult given the study's limitations in method to draw any conclusions that might recommend one type of adjuster over another in terms of sound. What I found most interesting was that the frequencies that showed the most differences were the "way up there" ones, meaning that for the most important notes we play the most often, the differences are plausibly negligible.

If your bass is changing a good bit with the weather, probably any good adjuster installed professionally will be an improvement. Just pick one that you think looks good with the rest of your gear and if you can't hear some kind of problem yourself for practical purposes there isn't one.