EVH vs AXIS are the differences real or imagined?

[drop_d]

I have a 1993 EVH, a 2002 AXIS EX and an AXIS SS.

I've seen posts about differences in fingerboard width between the EVH and the AXIS, I just measured mine. The EVH may be 0.1 mm narrower at the nut than the SS and the EX, but they are very, very close. At the 17th fret it is again (52.95mm vs 53.05mm) just 0.1 mm narrower. The posts I've seen talk about strings falling off either side of the EVH fingerboard, thus wider necks on the AXIS, but 0.1 mm is
negligible--as in a few sheets of paper (or a dodgy measurement)--certainly not enough to keep the strings on the straight and narrow (not that I've noticed a tendency for them to wander off the EVH fingerboard). With the unfinished neck and hard use, it could just be wear.

I'm a bit curious about the differences between the EVH and AXIS. Are they real? Imagined? Am I measuring the wrong places? The necks have a very slightly different feel (again, this could be wear), but the width feels (and measures), for all practical purposes, the same.

This is by no means an urgent post. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it one way or the other. But, I just happened to have my measuring equipment at home today and decided to see if there was any truth to the rumor. And if anyone could enlighten me about EBMMs this is definitely the place.


dd

 

[Raz]

Well I have heard that the Wolfie is inferior to the EBMM. Do you have an opinion on this?

 

[hbucker]

It's been said by moderators on this site that the base of the Axis neck is slightly wider than that of the EVH. IMO it feels like it. Obviously by the time you get up to the nut the difference will be minimal but that's the difference as described by Music Man reps.

The other differences seem obvious: Beveled body, larger pot cavity, moved pickup switch.

As far as quality goes? I own an EVH and have played Axis in stores that I thought were top drawer. I've also played a few that I wish qc had spent a little more time with in the setup department. These weren't bad but they were not up to the standard of my EVH. I'm sure these examples are few and far between though.

Others have said "There's no way the pickups on the Axis are identical to the pickps on the EVH." I have no way of knowing this. It seems unlikely that Music Man would cut corners on something like this. DiMarzio makes the pickups and it seems unlikely that they would cut corners too. I suspect they are indeed the same pickups but people hear what they want to hear. Much the way people notice the obvious differences between the EVH and the Wolfgang and chalk those differences up to the Wolf being inferior. They're seeing what they want to see.

Different isn't always good vs. bad. Most of the time it's just something vs. something different.

 

[Jimi D]

re: the necks, I know that it's been stated here before that when the EVH was tweaked into the Axis after Eddie's defection to Peavey (which was before his defection to Charvel but after his defection from Kramer, but I digress ), Dudley widened the neck 1/32" at the heel end to help alleviate the E-string-that-slips-off-the-fretboard complaint, but other than that, the necks are supposed to be the same... However, EBMM necks are hand finished - the sanding is done by human beings, not machines - so slight differences between individual necks are to be expected. As for feeling a difference, I would bet very, very serious money that no one could consistently do it in a blind test (six EVHs, six Axes, a blindfold and you can only touch a neck between the second and seventeenth frets). Human beings simply are not that accurate with their sense of touch... Anyway, I wonder if the finish on the EX could account for some of the difference in your guitars, especially at the nut?

 

[Tim O'Sullivan]

I have an Axis, an Axis SS and an EVH. The EVH feels very different to Axi. It may only be mm but the nut it narrower and the back of the neck feels very much less meaty than the Axis guitars. For my money the Axi also have much more balls than the EVH. The EVH is much more trebly than either Axis guitar.

 

[hbucker]

Tim,

Isn't your EVH a hard tail??? That could be a reason for the tonal difference. (unless of course your Axis' are hardtails too...)

 

[dwf1004]

The EVH feels very different to Axi.

I now feel less crazy about reading this, as I thought that I was the only one that felt thsi way. Thanks for keeping me one more step away from the asylum, Timmy.

 

[Tim O'Sullivan]

All my guitars are hard tails, I have never got on with trems.