Alligator clips and humbuckers

[Mononoaware]

This is probably best filed under C for Crazy, but I gotta ask: Does using alligator clips to "audition" pickups change the tone vs soldering them in?

I've been doing this for years--using a pair of brass alligator clips to temporarily wire in humbuckers to try them out in a guitar before committing to soldering. Only yesterday did it occur to me that the extra metal might be affecting the tone. And testing just now (using a JazzN in a guitar with 500k pots), it seems like it's possible. To my ears, it sounds clearer--i.e., brighter and/or less bassy--when the alligator clips are holding the wire to the switch, as opposed to just wrapping the bare wire around the contact.

Am I crazy? Or is there some scientific basis for the difference I'm hearing? Because if it's the latter, I've been doing it wrong all these years!

[beaubrummels]

No, it should not. If you have an electrical connection, you have an electrical connection. (Unless perhaps the wires are so long the resistance/capacitance does something. But I've never heard a difference and I've been doing the same thing for 20 years.)

[ArtieToo]

As beau said, it shouldn't. Consider a phono cartridge. How many connections, (non-soldered), does that go through before it hits the amp. And that signal is usually in the range of 5 mv's. A guitar signal would be 350 - 1000 mv's.

[GuitarDoc]

Well, yes there IS a scientific basis for that difference...
The ears always hear the sound that gets to them. But the brain "hears" what it wants to hear. Sometimes what the brain doesn't want to hear is what it actually hears.

In your case, your brain thought there might be a difference and it wanted to "hear" that difference, so it DID.

[El Dunco]

Well, yes there IS a scientific basis for that difference...
The ears always hear the sound that gets to them. But the brain "hears" what it wants to hear. Sometimes what the brain doesn't want to hear is what it actually hears.

In your case, your brain thought there might be a difference and it wanted to "hear" that difference, so it DID.

And any difference you do hear could be as simple as you turning your head slightly, the comb filtering of the room. Consider how drastically different tone can be by moving a microphone even a few millimeters.

[Mononoaware]

Thanks all. Makes sense.

I feel like I'm constantly chasing that bit of top-end sparkle, and have had to concede that my ears aren't precision instruments. Tones even seem duller later in the day, when I'm tired. It's good to know there's no electrical reason the clips might be messing with the sound--it's just the usual, subjective human sensory stuff we all deal with.

[magillver]

+1 to Beer$, it took me years to realize how much high frequency I'd lost in my left ear, from standing right next to the drummer's ride cymbal for far too long! If I turn my head from left to right while listening to something, the tone changes fairly dramatically for me...

[freefrog]

This is probably best filed under C for Crazy, but I gotta ask: Does using alligator clips to "audition" pickups change the tone vs soldering them in?

I've been doing this for years--using a pair of brass alligator clips to temporarily wire in humbuckers to try them out in a guitar before committing to soldering. Only yesterday did it occur to me that the extra metal might be affecting the tone. And testing just now (using a JazzN in a guitar with 500k pots), it seems like it's possible. To my ears, it sounds clearer--i.e., brighter and/or less bassy--when the alligator clips are holding the wire to the switch, as opposed to just wrapping the bare wire around the contact.

Am I crazy? Or is there some scientific basis for the difference I'm hearing? Because if it's the latter, I've been doing it wrong all these years!

I don't disagree with other members and their previous messages.

That said...

..."just wrapping the bare wire around the contact" with bare fingers might be an occasion to leave some tiny space between conductors, and/or some "organic grease" in there, if not some transpiration (=salted water), which are good ingredients to create... a kind of natural parasitic capacitor. And stray capacitance can have a noticeable impact on the performance of passive pickups, albeit it's a parameter extremely difficult to predict and to master.

Watch the vid below coming from the GITEC (and use automatic translation if needed)... The guy explains (and shows through lab tests) how braided shielded wire can rise to 1165pF per meter in a LP just because of moisture in the guitar, while the same cable would be several times less capacitive in dry air...

Conversely, An alligator clip properly positioned and firmly clipped shouldn't increase parasitic capacitance of more than a few picoFarad, just like a jack plug or other simple parts.

So, a difference of capacitive load remains physically possible and might even rise to an unusual level because of accidental conditions created by manipulation.

Not claiming that's what happens. Just stating an unlikely but possible explanation involving something else than mere psycho-acoustic influence or aural variability. ;-)

FWIW. :-)

Link:

https://youtu.be/AUigjP6t4aI?t=2250