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I took the back plate off after trying lowering the pups. When I say this thing was outputting pure mud, I wasn't joking. It was sucking really badly and was boomy without any highs at all. It was like someone laid a really thick pillow over the amp and then pressed it in place with straps to prevent any highs from escaping around the sides. I didn't think it was the pickups because of the severity of the problem and the fact that Duncan Designed pups wouldn't be that muddy. There's just NO way. Anyway, I took the plate off and had a look inside and was totally disgusted with the wiring layout. 
It was horrible to say the least. Instead of running the black wire as hot, they ran the green wire hot. The green wire was used for the switches. The red and white were heat shrinked together and pushed off out of the way. That by itself wouldn't necessarily cause the intensely muddy sound. The two tone pots had no capacitor on them at all. The cap was soldered to the ground lug on the volume pot and the two tone pots were wired to the volume pot in some weird way. This was a nightmare of design that allowed all kinds of attenuation to happen to the sound before it ever reached the output jack. It was attenuating on all three pots IMHO and having all kinds of bleed off on the single cap. 
I totally unwired the pups and cut the cap out of the guitar. I hooked up two spin a splits instead of tone knobs and made the volume knob a dedicated volume knob only. Plugged the guitar in and viola! Instantly brighter guitar. So bright I gotta wear shades. I had to dial back on the pups and bring them closer for a more bassy sound (the bridge especially). The neck pickup now sounds infinitely better IMHO. It dominates the bridge pickup when ran with it, so more tweaking is in order. It sounds creamy and very nice. The spin a splits work well and brighten the sound up even more if I want. Oddly enough the guitar still sounds les paulish no matter what I do to it. I like that quite a bit.
One problem I have with the duncan designed pups are that they are microphonic. One can tap on the metal plates and clearly hear it through the amp. Microphonic squeal is a problem now that high frequencies are allowed through. I'm not using it in super high gain applications per se, but the squeal comes through with gusto even when I'm using headphones. Not kosher and if that's the price to pay for unpotted pups I don't wanna go there. I'll take potted pups every single time.
It was horrible to say the least. Instead of running the black wire as hot, they ran the green wire hot. The green wire was used for the switches. The red and white were heat shrinked together and pushed off out of the way. That by itself wouldn't necessarily cause the intensely muddy sound. The two tone pots had no capacitor on them at all. The cap was soldered to the ground lug on the volume pot and the two tone pots were wired to the volume pot in some weird way. This was a nightmare of design that allowed all kinds of attenuation to happen to the sound before it ever reached the output jack. It was attenuating on all three pots IMHO and having all kinds of bleed off on the single cap. I totally unwired the pups and cut the cap out of the guitar. I hooked up two spin a splits instead of tone knobs and made the volume knob a dedicated volume knob only. Plugged the guitar in and viola! Instantly brighter guitar. So bright I gotta wear shades. I had to dial back on the pups and bring them closer for a more bassy sound (the bridge especially). The neck pickup now sounds infinitely better IMHO. It dominates the bridge pickup when ran with it, so more tweaking is in order. It sounds creamy and very nice. The spin a splits work well and brighten the sound up even more if I want. Oddly enough the guitar still sounds les paulish no matter what I do to it. I like that quite a bit.
One problem I have with the duncan designed pups are that they are microphonic. One can tap on the metal plates and clearly hear it through the amp. Microphonic squeal is a problem now that high frequencies are allowed through. I'm not using it in super high gain applications per se, but the squeal comes through with gusto even when I'm using headphones. Not kosher and if that's the price to pay for unpotted pups I don't wanna go there. I'll take potted pups every single time.
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