I am an Electrical Engineer by Degree and have some experience in this field. In my opinion the best sounding LP ever made is the Heritage 80 Series guitars that have the Ink Stamped 137/138 #s of the 1980 Shaw Pickups specifically identified with those numbers 137 and `138 Ink Stamped onto the back of the Humbuckers (Neck and Bridge respectively). No other ... and I mean NO OTHER - Tim Shaw Ink Stamped Pickups that you can compare will generate the clear raw sound that the 137/138 Ink stamped ones do... period !!! I compared many of the Shaw Vintage Pickups in a Lab and it's always the 137/138's that come out on top every time. And there is a reason ! For that particular version I understand they did two experiments back then with the magnets on AL-V vs. AL-II Poll charging and ended up creating a very raw sound that many` at the time said and still say today is far far superior to the coveted 1959 LP sounds. One of the primary changes has already been discovered and it's talked about in a very few limited forums but the other experimental change has not yet been disclosed. One retired sound tech put it best when stating that they decided to keep it a secret because they didn't want to see it copied or mass produced, Only a handful of people knew what they did to those 137/138 pickups and Shaw isn't talking now that he's the President of Fender. I guess disclosing the secret would have destroyed what beautiful uniqueness they created. I also read once that at one time a Sound Tech did a Blind sound test allowing people to play both guitars back to back blindfolded "the Master 59 LP and the 137/138 LPHS80" and the results were that sixteen out of the twenty professional rock musicians honestly preferred the 1980 Heritage Standard 80 sound to the coveted 59 LP. You too have to ask yourself - If it truly was supposed to be an exact replicated sound of the reissued 59 LP then why does the 1980 LPHS80 have its Control Pots wired directly to the Pickup Leads instead of the switch leads like the 59 did. The answer is because the LPHS80 tone was over achieved with the final Magnet charge changes for the 1980 production run so much so that it would have been near ridiculous to wire up. So instead, the capacitors had to be hard wired to the Pickup Leads hot wire putting a cap to the over achieving high high tones.... I just wonder when the world will figure this out and the LPHS80 takes its rightful thrown as the king of the LP sound hill instead of the 59..... P.S. I also understand that you can also spot one of the successful experimental Guitars from 1980 by a marking inside and under the back control pots metal cover. The truly awesome sounding LPHS80 Guitars had an ink drawn five pointed star and the number "80" written with an ink pen on the wood inside the Control Pot wiring area - usually accompanied by the Test Engineer or Tim's very own Initials TS (P.S. The handwritten initial letter T looks like a J). I looked inside two of them to date and have seen the Star the 80 and the initials that look like TS and or JS. Pretty wild.