Replacement B-Band UST 2020

[JazzyJ]

As most people know by now, B-Band are no longer trading and so existing stock is being bought up.

I came across an eBay seller in the UK selling a UST: "B-BAND CRESCENT & OTHER ELECTRIC,ELECTRO ACOUSTIC FOLK,DREADNOUGHT GUITAR PICKUP" based in the north of England. Around £16.

I got one and tested it, so I thought I'd share my experience.

The Ad states that this UST is "twice as loud as the original" and "Solves problems that guitarists had before"

Here are my results:

1) UST comes wrapped in a bit of thin foam inside an envelope.
2) Has B-Band stamped on the plastic connector
3) The element is thicker than the original. It looks as if it has a 1.5mm 'curved' strip stuck on top.
3) It works and it's way louder than the original - perhaps more than twice as loud!
4) As the UST is thicker is raises the saddle and thus action - so the saddle would need to be sanded down to revert to original action height.
5) There's a lot more 'body noise'. If you tap the guitar etc. it's loud. This might be great for people who play percussion on the body but bad for people who don't want the sound of their hand hitting the wood amplified so loud.
6) Difficult to say if the sound was better or worse, I thought it had less bass and adjusted my amp to suit.

And finally, it looks as if the 'extra' piece that's on top of the UST might be able to be 'peeled off'. Whether that would mean that it would still work and have 1) original thickness, so no saddle adjustment and 2) less volume, to match original - remains to be seen.

Either way, if your existing UST has gone down on you, at least these ones are available at a low price. Whether, it's a suitable replacement for everyone remains to be seen......

I've put my original UST back in for now in the hope that I won't have to permanently install this particular replacement. But I might try peeling it apart and see if it works like the original....

[guitaniac]

Thanks for the thorough and interesting report. I currently have a B-Band T65 system in one of my guitars. Its good to learn that in this one case, at least, the Chinese replacement part works to some extent. The B-Band folks did their own unique thing to the point that you can't easily mix and match their preamps or pickups with other brand preamps or pickups. Its good to know that the system may still be salvageable if a component goes bad.