I purchased an Ibanez AD-9 recently from a guy who swore it was vintage. I was amazed at the shape it was in. Now, I'm wondering if I got hosed. How can I tell if he was telling the truth or not?
I've looked on your page( been there many times, actually) and couldn't find anything specific about Ibanez or the AD-9 but, did read about the final numbers in a SN sometimes being the year. My AD-9 has the SN - 0540090. That would mean 1990 if I'm right. Am I right? Should I mod it? You're the dude I should ask! hahahahahhaa
hmm i've heard that the vintage ad9 has more headroom and "wetness" than the new ones. Anyone can give any info on the quality of the components? I had a reissue before as well.
I guess that's up to you... I see you have a Memory Lane, so if you're just using this for slapback... then maybe leave it alone. If you find that it's not a reissue, I'd send it in for a mod and feel better about getting it. I'm sure it sounds pretty good either way. It does a great, dark slapback.
You should be able to verify that you have an original by looking at the chips. Analogman has more info, scroll down a bit from this link to read this: And from the linked article from Legendary Tones comparing the re-issues from Maxon and Ibanez to each other and the originals...
Oh oh! I opened it up, compared the chips to the ones from the analogman website and found that the chips did not match up. I don't know much about each chip and what it does but, I'm going to post them in the hopes that someone can confirm. 3208A 52465 (two of those) BL3102 05 NT 34367 4558D JRC 5111A SA571N CPEK0443 Thanks for all your help so far
It looks like you have a re-issue, with the Shanghai Belling chips. The 3208A is the bbd, and the BL3102 is the clock.
Un-believable! Thank you for your help. I will be contacting the seller and will be demanding a refund. Not cool.
