It was a simply mistake as I understood, FMIC purchased on ebay a few vintage Guilds and sent them to Korea to copy as good as possible. Now by chance one of them had a dead bridge pickup and that is what was copied and nobody at FMIC ever questioned it! Until LTG members noticed and started to complain! Guild had told Steve (?) that they are going to change it after they found out about that error and the new changed spec bridge pickups were supposed to be available by now, but who knows...
As you might know we also complained about the NS S-100 using mini humbuckers (as a few very rare vintage S-100 models used actually!) and Guild changed the S-100 to full sized HB-1 copies! (But they show now on their Facebook page a mini humbucker equipped S-100 and tout the pickups as full sized HB-1...) Well details...
It's not like they don't read what we write here!
Ralf
My guesstimate, is that they went with the sweetest sounding example and no one bothered to check to see if the output was balanced in situ. It's an understandable mistake, given the vagaries of reverse engineering vintage guitars. FWIW, the pickup I took out go the bridge position of my T-400 did not seem structurally identical to the NS pickup. The tabs were tapered on the GSR pickup, but not on the NS pickup. The static resistance of the windings was, however, identical.
In any event, good, bad or otherwise, those mini-humbuckers are the reason I bought a Guild in the first place. I play Gretsch guitars most of the time and love the Filtertron sound. The Guild minis are different from the Filtertron sound, but they don't sound like Gibson-buckers either; and I like that.
The T-400 has been a bit of a wallflower up until now, because of the pickup balance problem, but the test play I gave it a few days ago revealed a guitar that I found very pleasing . . . and well worth the price. It sounds great for Jazz, which is very important to me. The T-400 is taking the place of the Byrdland I always dreamed of owning. It sounds the part of a serious Jazz axe when it's on the neck pickup. The more favorable balance between the neck and bridge pickups makes for a very pleasing sound with both pickups selected and the bridge pickup alone, at this point, sounds powerful and very bright, without being harsh. I wish that the guitar had come with a set of pickups that were more balanced, but it didn't. In the context of my guitar ownership, this is hardly a speed bump. The Gibson Johnny Smith I used to own was a P.I.T.A. compared to the T-400, and didn't sound any better to my ear.
So, at this point I have a very nice axe with a natural finish, a very nice carved top and it's both comfortable and lightweight. I couldn't be more satisfied. If my ship ever comes in, I'll buy a Wes model L-5, but I ain't holding my breath. In the meantime, the T-400 will do any and every-thing I could desire.
if I'm brutally honest I haven't been crazy about the bridge mini hums in my vintage Guilds either. I think that pickup works best in the neck position. In the neck it sounds like a piece of wood, which is a good thing in my book. In the bridge they can be pretty squashed sounding.
But that's probably sacrilege
I appreciate your honesty. Without access to several vintage Guilds from which to glean information, it's all but impossible for me to even form an opinion on the mini hums in vintage Guilds, but I'm certain that there was a degree of variation between production instruments. If I ever come across a true vintage Starfire III, you can wager that I'll give it a good test play.
For the time being, using a neck pickup in the bridge position seems to be the best solution.
