Are lower output pickups really more dynamic?

[Rex_Rocker]

Interesting! That's exactly the kind of info I wanted to learn.

[AlexR]

The thing is with a high output humbucker the wind itself supresses the treble content due to cancellation. As that bit is the key for perceived attack and the main part of 'dynamics' as people want it, low output pickups will certainly keep the treble bit intact.

[freefrog]

I share below another pic, trimmed in the same way for the reason explained in post 14.

Upper pic = impulse response of a P.A.F. replica with a low inner stray capacitance. Albeit it hosts symetrically wound coils, one coil is a wee bit faster than the other in its response to electrical stimulation.

Bottom pic = another P.A.F. replica with a similar inductance but a higher parasitic capacitance. The coil whose response is pictured in red is a tad slower. The other coil whose response is pictured in green delivers a tiny bit less amplitude.

When played, the humbucker in the upper pic sounds more single coilish and the other one seems more "compressed".



FWIW : One man's trash is another man's gold... :-P

[Rex_Rocker]

What type of units are each axis? And what are each line? What good does a vague graphic do?

I believe it's dB on the Y axis and ms on the X axis if I'm reading it like a regular IR.

[freefrog]

Yes, of course, the pics in my previous posts show output level on the Y axis and time on the X axis . If these screenshots weren't like those of regular IR's, I would have told it... A few minutes after having posted it, I had edited my message 14 to add explicative notes about that , anyway...

To put in perspective my post 18 about stray capacitance as having an effect on dynamics, here is incidentally a bit of rambling from a boutique winder:

https://youtu.be/9dy3XKEYER8?t=122

He mentions "capacitive loss" very allusively but that's actually the main problem behind what he says about dynamics in this section of his video.

Parasitic capacitance and inductance have similar consequences, BTW: both shift down the resonant peak, making passive pickups less bright... and simultaneously affect the speed / amplitude of their attack.

And that's not true only for pickups, BTW: put a long capacitive cable after a Fuzz Face, measure its impulse response and you'll see a slower attack with less peak amplitude while the pedal will sound bassier.

Foucault currents (eddy currents) could also be evoked more in details here because they are another cause of perceived "compression": a pickup with a cover is meant to have a slower and slightly more squashed impulse response than without cover in the same time than it sounds duller, because of eddy currents...

Non limitative list: some magnets make a pickup "faster" and/or with stronger peaks than others - as presupposed by all the discourse about magnetic alloys.

IOW, IME and IMO, there's definitively several interactive factors at work in "dynamics" (including the reaction of the input stage evoked in some previous posts). The aliveness of treble mentioned in other answers above is directly correlated to these factors but has not a single cause - nor is a cause itself to me: I rather see it as "the other side of dynamics". YMMV. :-)