How do I find the out put level for the Saturday night special pick up?

[AlexR]

Output is too variable as a metric......as in there are too many ways to measure it, plus the possible protocols surrounding the test are widespread and not possible to duplicate.
It has become such a problematic area that everyone has settled on a common ,easily transferable between brands, metric.....but one that has little if anything to do with actual signal...DCR.

[cragginshred]

jeremy coupled with the not so often used alnico 4 and the particular wind makes this puppy special. I've experienced drawbacks with 'Vintage' out put pups and high output too, so I would say these are perfec for those muscular pure rock and classic metal tones I paly!!!

I have a like my Suhr Thornbucker but next to the SNS it's weak. I can roll the volume back and get those same tones with the Duncan too.

[jeremy]

9.75k is like stupid high for a paf. most were 7.5k to 8.8k and even thats being fairly generous. dont know if ive heard of one being over 9k.

that aside, its a very cool pup set for sure

[Mincer]

SD has never officially released output data on their pickups, although, unofficially, they released the results of a controlled test on this forum. It is hard to do a test like that, unless you invent some sort of picking machine to pick consistently on the same guitar with many different pickups. But, even then, this doesn't represent real-world use (no one picks like a machine does). So, we can say, that this pickup has more output than that pickup, which only works if you are familiar with the 2 pickups being compared.

[cragginshred]

I got thru the Duncan today and they said 9.75 with a 30% variance. This is close to a medium op PAF by most standards which is what I am hearing. They pair amazingly well with my Plexi type amp!

[jeremy]

right, and there are a ton of other variables as well. you basically need a machine setup so it hits the string exactly the same way every time with the pup in exactly the same position along with a control signal of some kind as reference. youll never get a number that corresponds to the actual output you would get but youd get a number that you could compare between duncan models.

[Lewguitar]

duncan did post their mv output numbers before but i dont know how accurate they were, some were surprising. even if they were 100% accurate, they wouldnt be comparable to the dimarzio numbers unless both companies used the same exact process. its not an easy thing to measure but it would be nice info to have

Wouldn't the output vary depending on things like the thickness of the strings, how close to the strings the pickup is and how hard you pick or excite the string?

If you picked hard would that result in a higher millivolt reading?

[jeremy]

duncan did post their mv output numbers before but i dont know how accurate they were, some were surprising. even if they were 100% accurate, they wouldnt be comparable to the dimarzio numbers unless both companies used the same exact process. its not an easy thing to measure but it would be nice info to have

[Gtrjunior]

The Dimarzio site lists output levels of their pickups as well as DCR numbers.
It would be great if Duncan did something similar.

[jeremy]

the neck pup is kinda like a t-top with a4 magnet but around 7.8k, the bridge is hotter like 9.5k or something like that

[Lewguitar]

The most you can do is compare the DCR of the SNS pickup to the DCR of a pickup you're familiar with. They are basically a PAF style pickup with the output of Gibson humbuckers from the late 50's and into the 60's.

That would be true for most of Duncan's PAF style pickups.

[cragginshred]

The SD site does not list it. Thanks!