JPX Piezo saddle - loose contact or broken piezo element?

[prmtlfghtr]

Hello Guys,

I've bought a used JPX half a year ago. Unfortunately I didn't check the guitar well enough to see that the piezo on the lower E-string is giving a buzzing sound sometimes.
I already contacted MM customer service and they recommended me to replace all piezo saddles + the preamp.
I'm from Germany and this is quite a pricey option that I'm not 100% sure to be necessary.

Of course I tried the many recommended solutions in the different forums but nothing got the buzzing permanently go away. But what I noticed is, that the buzzing is not consistent. Sometimes it doesn't occur at all and sometimes during the whole playing. It just feels like there could be some loose contact or anything because sometimes I could get rid of it by shaking the guitar a little bit. I already disassembled everything but it looked normal to me. No broken cable or anything like that.

Maybe someone here had the same problem and found a solution? Or is it really the piezo that's broken, although it's possible to get it working sometimes?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Mace13]

Hi, Those piezos are pretty intricate. Based on what you describe it sure seems like there is a bad connection, possibly inside the piezo itself. You probably need to replace the faulty piezo replaced, which is a pretty intricate job to do.

My understanding is that the piezos are somewhat matched, and if you get a replacement it needs to be somewhat matched to the one you are replacing (volume balance). I think there are certain piezos for certain strings to balance the overall volume (maybe someone more knowledgable can chime in).

Not sure why EBMM would recommend a new pre-amp? If the issue is one string only, then only that piezo (or the set of piezos in case a matched set is needed) should need replaced. The pre-amp wouldn't selectively make just the low E string buzz. On a couple of my guitars that have had piezo issues under warranty, EBMM just replaced the single piezo. I know this because one repair was not done well (i.e., they didn't replace the entire set of piezos).