Anthem and Anthem SL...main differences???

[clay49]

Hi folks, newbie here...just joined a few minutes ago!

I have two custom shop Breedlove guitars...a mahogany Fusion and Rosewood CM Voice. The Fusion has the Anthem, with the blender wheele, phase button and volume control, and the CM has the SL with just the volume wheel control. The Fusion sounds wonderful, and I love the flexibility of adjument available with mixing the element and the mic, but the CM is just simply dull and lifeless, even when adjusting the blend with a screwdriver, it goes from dull to shrill, and nothing in between. I was surprised at how vastly different these systems sound!

My question, is this: Is the only difference in these two systems the control module? I mean, if I were to get the dual wheel control module of the Anthem, and connect my SL element and mic to it, would it give me the flexibility, or is there something different in these two (other than the control)???

[clay49]

Anybody home???

[Caleb_Elling]

Hey clay,
Thanks for posting.

The Anthem and SL use the same mic and pickup, but each system has different levels of control over them. On the SL, the pickup always and only carries the bass frequencies, while the mic carries the mid and high frequencies. The small screwdriver adjustment is a Mic Level control. Adjusting the Mic Level up will give you more or less mic, compared to the fixed level of the undersaddle pickup. So turning the Mic Level up will give you a brighter sound and turning it down will give you a darker sound. The goal is to set it so that the sound from the SL matches the tone of the guitar unplugged. Of course, you can make it brighter or darker if you need to.

On the full or standard Anthem system, you get the same sound as the SL (bass carried by the pickup, mids and highs by the mic) on the "mic" side of the Mix wheel (neck side). Mixing toward the pickup (bridge side) will give you the full-range undersaddle pickup only. The mic never carries the full frequency range in any of the Anthems.

The SL is just designed to give you the "mic side" of the Anthem mix, in a much smaller and simpler package.

The Stage Pro Anthem and standard Anthem use mini-plug connections, while the SL's connections are all pre-soldered together. So upgrading from the SL to either of the other systems requires a complete system exchange, not just the preamps.

I hope this helps.