Good alternatives to OEM Gibson Nashville Tune-O-Matic bridges?

[Steve A.]

A good friend always installs ~$40 unslotted Tune-O-Matic bridges from Gibson on all of his LP-styled guitars to improve the tone and sustain, cutting the slots as shallow as possible and aligning them with regard to the pickup pole pieces as recommended at StewMac. (For the wound strings the slot should only be half of the string diameter with the unwound strings a little bit deeper than that. Basically the same with nut slots, too.)

My question is whether anybody here has found a good source of unslotted bridges that are almost as good as the OEM Gibson ones but at a more reasonable price...?

Steve Ahola

[Chuck H]

I can't recommend a bridge, but I will warn against making a purchase before researching the saddle material of any you choose to explore. I've seen many off brand or generic parts on less expensive guitars made overseas where the saddles are plated. Since nearly all companies have most of their parts made overseas**, and bean counters are often involved in quality vs. cost materials selection process, I would be concerned that even un slotted saddles could be made of cheaper materials and then plated. Meaning that you'll have a real problem when cutting your own slots.

**Even some products that are "Made in U.S.A." are really just assembled here with some part or parts having been made overseas. This, I think, is a real possibility in the aftermarket guitar parts market.

[Steve A.]

I can't recommend a bridge, but I will warn against making a purchase before researching the saddle material of any you choose to explore. I've seen many off brand or generic parts on less expensive guitars made overseas where the saddles are plated.

Chuck, that was exactly why I started this thread: to get recommendations from people here who have found a replacement bridge that has worked well for them. One complication is that with some vendors what you receive in one order isn't necessarily what you will receive in the next (I am thinking more of Amazon than StewMac.)

BTW since one would typically cut slots in an unslotted bridge it would be really stupid to sell one with cheap plating... but many vendors are pretty stupid!

Steve

P.S. As suggested by your wording your caveat about cheap imported guitars does not necessarily apply to the more expensive imports... I've been very impressed with the quality in the PRS SE line of guitars designed in the U.S. and mfg'd by World Musical Instruments in Korea.

Rather than just order guitars cafeteria-style currently produced by a guitar factory as many vendors do PRS brought them their own designs which were evidently updated periodically after inspecting samples from each year's batch. (IMO the specific guitar models keep getting better each year, at least until they get as good as they will get using the current CNC programs.)