Raw Vintage saddles are great

[5F6-A]

I have bought a set of Raw Vintage saddles for my BKP loaded Strat and this is the veredict:
 They are wonderful! I mean, the whole bridge is kind of Frankenstein concontion than seems to work perfectly.

Raw Vintage springs and saddles
Gotoh plate
GFS Solid steel block
Callaham screws

The tone with the RV saddles is kind of hollow-sounding in a vintage way. Maybe not as full sounding in the mids as Callahams but very cool sounding nonetheless. I have reliced them slightly and they fit perfectly in terms of tone and looks.

Anybody here is using them?

[Nadz1lla]

They look awesome! Not used them myself, though.

I tend to swing to both ends of the scale when it comes to hardware like saddles etc, sometimes I like a really precise, modern look, like with a hipshot, other times I really like something that looks old, rustic and battered. I can never decide, hah!

But these look sweet, mate. Definitely tickle my relic fancy!

[Philly Q]

How do they compare with the titanium saddles, sound-wise?

[5F6-A]

the saddles come shiny fresh from factory but I aged them slightly to fit the overall looks of my relic style strat (you can see some of he cracked, yellowed olympic white nitro finish in the pic behind the intonation screws).

Phil, the titanium saddles are great too. IME the titanium saddles sounded more balanced, fuller and sweeter across all frequencies. On the other hand, steel (RV) sounds a bit different to me; more traditional but more temperamental too. More twangy and kind of hollow I guess.

 Hope this helps
 

[Philly Q]

Thanks Hilario, that's basically what I was hoping you'd say!  :lol:

I do like the traditional tone of steel saddles - because we've all grown up hearing that sound - but to me personally it can be a bit too twangy and hollow.  I do like a slightly softer, sweeter tone where the notes seem to swell in volume rather than ringing out instantly (if that makes any sense!).  I quite like Graph Tech saddles for that reason (although they can sound a little too soft), and hopefully I'll like the titanium ones too.  :D

[AndyR]

Oooo! I like the sound of this...

I'm using Raw Vintage springs - but I hadn't noticed (or had forgotten) that they did saddles as well. The strat I'd use them on has all steel hardware already though, so possibly might not make much difference.

[5F6-A]

Unfortunately the RV saddles are rather expensive. I think they are worth the money though...