Crystal Frets....

[Hesh Breakstone]

A good friend of mine is coming over tomorrow evening and he asked me to take a look at crystal frets and let him know how to get these on his guitar.....

Here is the company web site just.... dripping with lots of info.... (please note sarcasm....)

http://www.crystalfrets.com/

Anyway I have tons of concerns here including this claim from the site "Not since Les Paul built his first solid body electric guitar in 1941 has there been a breakthrough in the natural sustain and sound of a fretted instrument." 

And this claim:

"Discover the Ultimate in Tone"

Other concerns include the permanent nature of the install seemingly requiring milling out the fret slots to the width of the desired crystal frets.  As such this is not reversible and one also has to wonder since the manufacturer is who does the install what process controls they have in place to ensure either maintaining or correcting the precision of the fret spacing during the install.

In addition being a firm believer in the old adage that if it sounds too good to be true it just may be too good to be true.  So I am skeptical to say the least and not all that keen to embrace anything making such wild claims and providing no.... data to back up the claims.

I would be very interested to hear everyone's thoughts about these crystal frets and if you have any actual experience with the product, the company, the process please let us know your impressions?

Hopefully instead of talking until I am blue in the face when my friend comes over I can just sit him down with a beer at my computer and let what you guys add here inform him of what he is getting into...

Many thanks!

[Tim Mace]

whoops did I say amber...I meant agate...hope it's not too late

[John]

I've got a fossilized kubasa flatpick that improves attack by 3.73% .....I wonder if the crystal fret guys would be interested ....hmmm

[Joe Fox]

If the customer REALLY wants it.

Let him mail the guitar to them and wash your hands of it, but give him your opinion first.

This will be to your advantage when he comes back with his humble on.

If it's a vintage or rare instrument, please try to talk him out of it!

[Hesh Breakstone]

No prob Joe - my friend has been scared out of this idea by me and some of the posts here and on another forum.  Thanks for your reply though and thanks too to everyone else!!!