5.8k Surfer???

[Chistopher]

Neck and middle Ant 2 Surfers are advertised at 6.5k. I ordered a set off Reverb (retrospec) that claims to have a neck at 5.8k. That's clearly beyond standard tolerances.

My question being, is this more likely to be a fault in the reading or pickup, or is it possible this was made back when Ants were still custom shop?

 

[jeremy]

hard to tell, mine have all been below 6.5k but not that low. lowest was 6.1k i think, and it is a fantastic neck pup

 

[AlexR]

Measure it out in the snow and it will read low, measure it in the desert it will read high.
In fact cradle a pickup in your hand and with the leads attached you can see it climb up in resistance.

Pickups are also wound to turn count. Change the tension and the resistance will go up. Have some slightly fatter wire and the K reading will be lower for the same turns.

I also don't think any vintage fender strat pickup ever got to 6.5k. Most of them hovered between 5.8 and 6k.
So ironically you're wondering if the most accurate-to-vintage K reading pickup that Duncan has seeming made is actually a 'fault'.

 

[Mincer]

You bought it before or after you looked up what it was supposed to measure?

 

[Artie]

Another thing is that when I worked for the military, we calibrated our handheld's every year. I imagine that we as consumers, never do. I haven't done mine since I retired in 2016. They do drift. It's not a bad idea to buy one or two precision resistors to check. One at 5k and 10k is probably adequate for most guitar work. Maybe a 500k if you want to get fancy. And use clips, or have them mounted to a board. You don't want to hold the resistor in your fingers when you measure it.

 

[Chistopher]

You bought it before or after you looked up what it was supposed to measure?

I bought a set of Surfers, which are supposed to read both 6.5k for neck and middle, but afterwards I read in the description the neck only reads 5.8k.

 

[Chistopher]

Measure it out in the snow and it will read low, measure it in the desert it will read high.
In fact cradle a pickup in your hand and with the leads attached you can see it climb up in resistance.

Pickups are also wound to turn count. Change the tension and the resistance will go up. Have some slightly fatter wire and the K reading will be lower for the same turns.

I also don't think any vintage fender strat pickup ever got to 6.5k. Most of them hovered between 5.8 and 6k.
So ironically you're wondering if the most accurate-to-vintage K reading pickup that Duncan has seeming made is actually a 'fault'.

It's less about the inner mechanisms of designing a pickup and more "Did this pickup likely leave the factory reading 5.8k or did some sort of damage cause it"

I decided to just cancel the order.

 

[beaubrummels]

It's 11% off spec, meaning 10%, on tolerance, and 1% beyond. That could happen just by measuring it outside in a garage after it's been sitting there overnight without touching the pickup body, only the wires.

 

[Artie]

And sometimes manufacturers make a mistake. I have a 500k CTS pot that reads 384k. That's more than 20% off.

 

[freefrog]

For the record, 5.8k is the normal DCR of a CS69...

The original neck pickup of the 62 L series Strat that I've periodically here in maintenance measures less than this: 5.47k.

And it's the most inspiring Strat pickup I've ever played.

The mid one measures 6.1k and the same inductance than a SSL1 but is less seducing to my ears.

A thing [other than those already pointed by Alex] is that the same number of turns with a slightly thicker wire easily changes the final DCR. 8000 turns of 42AWG loosely scatter wound would give close to 6.5k. With 41 AWG, it would fall to 5.45k.

FWIW: just rambling out loud about the fact that DCR is not that important IMHO. YMMV.

Now, I totally get the mistrust inspired by unusual specs: 5.8k might also characterize a damaged pickup whose external layers have been dewound for repair.

 

[jeremy]

antiquitys should have a little tag that tells the resistance as measured at the factory

 

[Chistopher]

antiquitys should have a little tag that tells the resistance as measured at the factory

Actually this is a retrospec set, which does not. I talked to the seller, who happens to have a perfect 5 star record across about 100 sales, and they said it sounds fine, so I'm just going to trust them.

Also for the record, I can't find this confirmed anywhere but it seems to be the most likely case, retrospecs still come with degaussed A5s right? They just look new?

 

[jeremy]

as far as i know, that is correct. same pup, just not aged

 

[Mincer]

Yes, that was the case for my Retrospec Antiquity humbucker.

 

[Chistopher]

Might be time to dust off the oscilloscope and measure the inductance.

 

[AlexR]

It's less about the inner mechanisms of designing a pickup and more "Did this pickup likely leave the factory reading 5.8k or did some sort of damage cause it"

I decided to just cancel the order.

I just spent my entire post outlining several ways that the measurement could change based on being perfect from the factory.

 

[Chistopher]

I just spent my entire post outlining several ways that the measurement could change based on being perfect from the factory.

: party:

 

[Chistopher]

I do not for the life of me understand how the seller got it to read 5.8k. Even setting it in my fridge wasn't enough to drop it to 5.8k. Maybe a fault with that specific multimeter.

 

[GuitarStv]

5.8k is very low for a 6.5k pickup to read. Any chance that there was a break and the pickup had to be unwound at some point in the past?

 

[jeremy]

so what does it read on your meter?