LukeFRC

Unlikely

I would imagine the pre and digimod are completely separate circuits.

@MrDinsdale - Sorry the sarcasm wasn't directed towards you... I was reacting to being told my off topic comments were moot points that held no ground Less sarcastically - Gnermo is completely wrong in how they are trying to explain how pickups work. All passive pickups need two connections going to them to make a circuit. A live and a ground. On the picture quoted the live is the tip of the white cable, and the shield on the white cable is the ground. Just like when you wire up a jack cable the shield is a connection too... For active pickups you need to power for the electronics built in. That is the red cable. (The ground for the electronics circuit is also the shield of the white cable.) Warwick use red for live positive power On the first picture of the control cavity you posted @MrDinsdale you can clearly see there are two red cables going into where the wires exit to go to the pickup cavities - and I think the bit at the bottom of that picture where there is three wires and some black heat shrink is where the the power cables have been joined. So they should be active pickups. The other way you can tell is that the blend on Warwicks will probably be 25k not 250k.

Fancy sketching us all a circuit diagram to explain how that would work? This might help... https://shop.warwick.de/media/pdf/99/49/24/MEC_Manual_ENlbJP1eMxGlHU7.pdf

You could even replace it with two separate ones if there's space and it's cheaper. 12v is heater, and then there's the preamp which could be running anywhere from 9v to 200v+ - wouldn't you need to know that to spec a transformer?

Very nice - is there a touch of Rickenbacker in the sound it makes?

Well done on realising that, I’ll make this obvious- one big difference is that active pickups are active, so need power. so you run a power cable into the pickup cavity. if the pickups are passive they don’t need power… so don’t need a power cable. see the difference? Next question- see the red power cables in the picture? Coming out the battery, split three ways, one to the preamp and two to the pickup cavities… now can you think of any logical deduction we could make about power cables going into a pickup cavity when we are asking the question “are these active or passive”?

That’s a powersoft digimod top right - what’s the model number? Some of them have their own power supply section….The power amp section of the amp might be powered separately than the preamp … which might make everything simpler

You can also clearly see the power cables going into the pickup cavities…

Red lead is positive from the battery - it splits into 3 and one goes to preamp and one each to each pickup. so active. the other way to tell is if the blend pot is 250k passive 25k active

In active mode, with a 2 band boost only preamp you don’t have a way to cut the top end at all… with VTC you do. think of a passive jazz with a blend pot- vol, blend and tone then and bass and treble boost. that’s why VTC was added - it’s utterly different experience to playing something with say a East Uni pre where you have super precise bass and treble boost and cut and a semi parametric mid…. and you might use a Sadowsky in a passive, mine sometimes sounds nicer for some things in passive.

I stand corrected - I had just presumed they were different due to the cheap cost of them aftermarket! TBH I can't imagine even if there were differences I can't imagine there's really that much of a difference as it's the same recipe and similar ingredients...

not quite correct... Sadowsky Japan had two original ranges - the higher end Japan only Sadowsky TYO and the Sadowsky Metro which were available over here. I think they were manufactured by ESP. At some point the line that were Sadowsky Metro with "Sadowsky Guitars" on the headstock became known and labelled as Sadowsky Metroline with I don't think any differences other than ones that affected all sadowskys- I can't remember anyone saying anything negative about them (other than the price went up, but it was the post Brexit pound devaluation that caused that). Roger then wanted to make a cheaper line again - which was the Japanese Sadowsky Metro Express which were built by a Japanese factory for him that wasn't the same dedicated workshop as was doing the construction of the original Japanese Sadowsky. I'm not entirely sure what happened, whether there were too many QC issues being caught or they just couldn't make enough of them fast enough but they didn't last long. Then our friend Mr Wilfer got involved and everything changes, all the hardware is different and presumably made to different price points for different ranges - so you no have the odd Sadowsky NYC from Roger's workshop and then the German made Sadowsky Custom Shop, Sadowsky Masterbuilt and Sadowsky Metroline, and the much cheaper Sadowsky Metro Express made in China.

Read it yourself (Btw don’t know how good this translation is, when I was at Uni I studied a different version) https://monoskop.org/images/e/e4/Debord_Guy_Society_of_the_Spectacle_1970.pdf

Is there a power cable going from the battery to the pickup cavity….

Imagine laying in your Moses basket reading this https://brochures.yokochou.com/guitar-and-amp/yamaha/1985/en_index.html BB3000 was their most expensive

the sad thing is we all sit here chatting about "vintage value" and cosmetic condition... and the thing could play like a million dollars and it still wouldn't make a difference.

I was looking at transistor testers last night... my conclusion was you can buy the Chinese ones from UK sellers for not much.

The tube in this is a ECC82 (12au7) not the 12ax7 it is supposed to have (though it works fine with the 12au7 and is high enough output anyway) the random tube I got in a batch with two misslabled 12ax7 on eBay years ago. I only bought it cos I fancied trying something else in the walkabout I had. I think one was a dutch Phillips made thing from the 60's and the other was Chinese. Anyway, one sounded not amazing and one was nicer than the stock. Anyway, this one which sat forgotten in the garage is a July 1953 Berlin made Telefunken. I know nothing about tubes and don't know if that is good or bad - but it is the oldest thing I own apart from the house (1790-1820)

which combos?

What are the diy ones?

One knob!

I literally was thinking on buying a couple of PedalPCB boards

A win at the expense for someone Else’s stupidity for @bloke_zero anyway