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Duncan's first HYBRID?
I have owned several first-generation "The JB Model" pickups from the '70s. One thing I've often noted is that the resistance of these original pickups was slightly lower than the standard production versions of the 1980's and beyond. Where the current spec is officially 16.6K for an SH-4, and my JB pickups from the 1983-88 era have generally conformed to this (roughly 16.4K-16.8K), the earliest models I have owned have generally measured between 15.9K-16.4K.
Well, someone asked me to measure one of the '70s models I recently put up for sale and I was blown away...The coils are clearly mis-matched!
One is 8.1K, which falls in line with the typical examples I've owned, but the second coil is 7.1K. That's a combined resistance of just 15.2K!
To be clear, I've seen *slight* offsets before. With my 15.9K example, there was about a .3K-.4K difference between coils. But, 1.0K is a huge difference! Kind of reminds me of the justification for Dave Mustaine's "Thrash Factor" pickup. According to SD lore, it was out-of-spec, being somehow underwound (though the Thrash Factor is also spec'd like the regular JB...go figure ::cough::marketing::cough:: )
Could it be one of the very first Custom coils (designed for EVH) mated to a JB coil? Was it intentionally underwound for some reason?
Just found it interesting. I'm tempted to hold onto it and try it in my Washburn USA George Lynch prototype super Strat just 'cause!
I have owned several first-generation "The JB Model" pickups from the '70s. One thing I've often noted is that the resistance of these original pickups was slightly lower than the standard production versions of the 1980's and beyond. Where the current spec is officially 16.6K for an SH-4, and my JB pickups from the 1983-88 era have generally conformed to this (roughly 16.4K-16.8K), the earliest models I have owned have generally measured between 15.9K-16.4K.
Well, someone asked me to measure one of the '70s models I recently put up for sale and I was blown away...The coils are clearly mis-matched!
One is 8.1K, which falls in line with the typical examples I've owned, but the second coil is 7.1K. That's a combined resistance of just 15.2K!
To be clear, I've seen *slight* offsets before. With my 15.9K example, there was about a .3K-.4K difference between coils. But, 1.0K is a huge difference! Kind of reminds me of the justification for Dave Mustaine's "Thrash Factor" pickup. According to SD lore, it was out-of-spec, being somehow underwound (though the Thrash Factor is also spec'd like the regular JB...go figure ::cough::marketing::cough:: )
Could it be one of the very first Custom coils (designed for EVH) mated to a JB coil? Was it intentionally underwound for some reason?
Just found it interesting. I'm tempted to hold onto it and try it in my Washburn USA George Lynch prototype super Strat just 'cause!
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