Early Korean comparison to Chinese Burns
Posted: 13 Jan 2019, 17:44
Korean or Chinese made Burns ? There seems to be many varied opinions on why one is better than the other. Alan Entwistle has been involved with Burns for many years now and I feel his recent comments deserve a prominent feature - so here is
“The Korean made Marquee's are not actually better made than the later Chinese ones at all, it was early days for the Korean production, therefore the guitar was at the beginning of it's development curve so to speak, the differences are this: 1) Pickups, on the Korean stock the Rezomatiks were simply badged ceramic generic ST pickups, on the later Chinese made Marquee's the Rezomatiks were actually dedicated Burns pickups made and specification researched by Entwistle pickups, these have Alnico 5 magnetics and fiber bobbins, as per the originals. 2) Trem, the original Korean production utilized the "point system" trem, which is a good trem but was prone to failure with the actual "points" sometimes collapsing or breaking. present Chinese production use a dedicated knife edge vibrato, which we developed "in house" that has a full size aluminium block, it returns to pitch better and sounds better (more Burnsy). 3) Electronics: the Korean version used a generic strat circuit, augmented by a push/pull, to bring in the neck pickup, the Chinese production uses a dedicated Burns control circuit with different capacitor values and Entwistle "Smoothtrak" pots. 4) Aesthetics: The earlier Korean versions had quite "blocky" bodies with only a 10mm edge radiusing, and rather non-descript necks, the Chinese production have well contoured large radius bodies, made from highly resonant Okume (Central African timber similar to mahogany), and nicely carved necks. 5) Perhaps the most important point is that present Burns models have a much higher level of quality control than those early Korean ones, we are at the factory (which also makes Revelation) all year round, so we do keep a constant eye on production. So hopefully i have put to bed this constantly repetitive idea that old is better than new, or that Korean is better than Chinese!
Also watch out with those pickups, genuine Burns Rezomatiks have ENGRAVED COVERS, not printed ones.
The same pickups are fitted to the Marquee and the Marvin.”
“The Korean made Marquee's are not actually better made than the later Chinese ones at all, it was early days for the Korean production, therefore the guitar was at the beginning of it's development curve so to speak, the differences are this: 1) Pickups, on the Korean stock the Rezomatiks were simply badged ceramic generic ST pickups, on the later Chinese made Marquee's the Rezomatiks were actually dedicated Burns pickups made and specification researched by Entwistle pickups, these have Alnico 5 magnetics and fiber bobbins, as per the originals. 2) Trem, the original Korean production utilized the "point system" trem, which is a good trem but was prone to failure with the actual "points" sometimes collapsing or breaking. present Chinese production use a dedicated knife edge vibrato, which we developed "in house" that has a full size aluminium block, it returns to pitch better and sounds better (more Burnsy). 3) Electronics: the Korean version used a generic strat circuit, augmented by a push/pull, to bring in the neck pickup, the Chinese production uses a dedicated Burns control circuit with different capacitor values and Entwistle "Smoothtrak" pots. 4) Aesthetics: The earlier Korean versions had quite "blocky" bodies with only a 10mm edge radiusing, and rather non-descript necks, the Chinese production have well contoured large radius bodies, made from highly resonant Okume (Central African timber similar to mahogany), and nicely carved necks. 5) Perhaps the most important point is that present Burns models have a much higher level of quality control than those early Korean ones, we are at the factory (which also makes Revelation) all year round, so we do keep a constant eye on production. So hopefully i have put to bed this constantly repetitive idea that old is better than new, or that Korean is better than Chinese!
Also watch out with those pickups, genuine Burns Rezomatiks have ENGRAVED COVERS, not printed ones.
The same pickups are fitted to the Marquee and the Marvin.”