LR Baggs Anthem pickup system

Bob-Dubery

The Baggs Anthem has been getting rave reviews. I had a chance to try one out today. It was fitted to a Breedlove guitar with redwood top and rosewood back and sides. The instrument we compared it against was my Larrivee LV-05 (spruce top, mahogany back and sides) which is fitted with a Baggs Dual Source (hereafter referred to as "DS")

Both systems combine an under saddle pickup with a microphone.

The apparent differences are
1) In the DS system the microphone is mounted on the back of the guitar and facing the top - at the location the technician doing the installation determines to be best. In the Anthem it is installed under the bridge plate facing towards the back of the guitar.

2) In the Anthem the phase reverse switch is more easily accessible, being mounted with the other controls on a sound hole mounted plate.

3) The Anthem does not have a notch filter control for the internal microphone.

4) With the DS you can buy a system that omits the standard UST and allows you to use an existing UST, your own choice of UST or even a magnetic pickup like the Baggs M1. You do not get these options with the Anthem.

In both cases the under saddle component is the Baggs Element.

Now this is not that scientific a test, but we did do a fair bit of comparing the two guitars, plugged in and using the same amp (Roland AC60).

Conclusions
1) Both systems sound very good after you've spent some time EQing.

2) In both cases we started off with no FX and all EQ flat. Working from this base we found the Anthem sounded a bit better, a bit more natural straight up with no adjustments made. We can't prove it, but we feel that we could dial in a good sound faster with the Anthem equipped guitar. So it seems you can get a good sound more quickly with this system.

3) In both cases you can never dial out the element completely. Baggs say this is deliberate with the Anthem because the UST gives a better bass response than the microphone does. We found that there was less "honk" with the Anthem - though once the DS guitar was properly EQed there was not huge "honkiness" with that system either. This was the case even when we ran both systems with the mic backed all the way down - there was still slightly less "honk" with the Anthem.

4) There was greater useful travel of the control that blends the mic in on the Anthem system.

I suspect that there is some notch filtering being done in the electronics of the Anthem system - this would explain the lesser "honk" on this system and also the absence of the user adjustable notch filter.

I have two guitars with the Baggs DS fitted. I'm very happy with that system BUT it does require some setting up after installation. This would seem to be less of an issue with the Anthem. It's not a deal breaker in any case, and whilst I feel the Anthem is the better system I don't feel that the difference is so great that I want to tear out my DS systems and shell out for Anthems instead.

The DS is still available internationally and locally.

Gearhead

bottom line... Is there a price difference?

Bob-Dubery

Yes there is a price difference, and wherever I have seen prices quoted the Anthem is the more expensive system.

I found this on Nick Benjamin's site (http://www.benjaminguitars.co.uk/pickups.htm)

Bagg's latest systems combine an undersaddle pickup with an internal mic like many other dual systems but they have done it in a new way which achieves what I feel is a dramatic step up from even their best previous offerings. The 'Tru-Mic' attaches very close to the bridgeplate on the inside of the guitar with a special mounting harness - this positioning rejects most of the reverberating jumble of soundwaves inside the guitar and instead picks up a strong and robust tone from the strings via the soundboard. In both versions of the system there is an active crossover circuit which rejects everything below 250Hz for the mic and everything above for the undersaddle. What this means in practice is that you get all your attack and upper midrange from the mic but without any boom and all your bass and low end strength from the undersaddle but without any unnatural attack ('quack'!).

So it's quite fundamentally different from the DS system that I have in my guitars.

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote: Yes there is a price difference, and wherever I have seen prices quoted the Anthem is the more expensive system.

Elderly's quote the Anthem at $90 more than the DS. Nick Benjamin quotes the Anthem (the full featured, not the "lite") at 100 pounds more than the DS. So it's a non-trivial price difference.

guitarboy2828

Thanks for the write up Bob, I've been seeing more and more people rave about these things and have wondered why at such a high price. Good to get a good honest review on these things. Would love to try one out myself, eventually ?

Bob-Dubery

guitarboy2828 wrote: Would love to try one out myself, eventually ?

Trouble with that is that the only way to try one is to take your guitar in to the dealer, say "please fit an Anthem" and then hand over the folding stuff. Some pickups simply clip in, but this isn't one of them.

Bob-Dubery

You can tell I'm not a professional reviewer! I checked out the Baggs web site AFTER posting the above ramblings.

Please note
1) There is also an easy to use battery checker built into the control unit

2) There is a setup procedure to be done with the Anthem and after installation. However this is to adust the mic/ust balance so it's a different setup than is required for the DS. (This procedure would explain why you get a greater usable travel on the blend control) Also the pot that you must use for this setup is more easily accessible. As with the DS this should be a once only setup - do it at install time and then forget about it.

Gearhead

X-rated Bob wrote:
there is an active crossover circuit which rejects everything below 250Hz for the mic and everything above for the undersaddle

i have some trouble believing this. In practice, such a fixed crossover would make the blend control work like a tone control. Mr X-rated does not report that and it would not be useful.

Bob-Dubery

Gearhead wrote: i have some trouble believing this. In practice, such a fixed crossover would make the blend control work like a tone control. Mr X-rated does not report that and it would not be useful.

From the Baggs manual

When the mix control is rolled toward the neck, the Tru• Mic is carrying the majority of the guitar’s voice with the Element pickup supporting only the lowest frequencies.

When rolled toward the bridge, you will hear the full-range Element pickup only.

Which seems to bear out what I'd understood about this system - you always get at least some of the Element in the mix. Benjamin might be referring to a situation where you have the mix control rolled all the way to "mic".

This makes sense to me, you can hear with the DS system that the element is doing the work at the bottom end, it's the mids and tops that benefit most from the mic.