A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

[crusty philtrum]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

Okay...i have just finished setting up the two 59/Jazz neck hybrids, both fitted with A3 magnets. At the moment here in downtown Melbourne it is 4.30 am and my eyeballs are falling out of their sockets, so i am going to get some sleep before installing them tomorrow....errr....later today.

I have already got two Custom/59 A5 bridge pickups ready to go. The plan is to fit the weaker neck and bridge ones into my USA Hamer Studio Custom, to replace the pair of 59's that came in it. This guitar has, i think, 300K custom taper pots....2 volumes and master tone. For the time being at least i will leave all the pots and wiring as is, only changing the pickups.

This guitar has proven to have beautifully resonant wood, with a huge ammount of detail getting to an amp even with the stock 59's. So I have great hopes for the hybrids. I am hoping to be able to get some real beauty and detail from the neck pup and some pretty muscular rock tones from the bridge, and, i like to think, some very nice combinations when the two pickups are on together. But i do wonder whether the A3 / A5 combination will make for an excessive imbalance between the pickup outputs? The pups will be under nickel silver covers, BTW.

Another question i would like to ask you guys....you have been talking of degaussing....is it possible to do this using a tape head demagnetiser.....maybe just a single pass at a slight distance? I have one of these things, and thought it might be worth a try....any thoughts on that?

I will post again as soon as i hear sound coming out of these things.....very soon

cheers, neil.

 

[BigDaddy]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

Out of all the humbucker pickups I have used. Going from PAF's, T tops to early Dimarzo's to every Duncan and a lot of aftermarket pups like Voodoos and Tom Holmes, Fralins.

A4- Smooth, less compressed and less midrange. Fralin's use A4.
A2- Compressed, less high end, a little flabby bass
A5- Less compressed than the A2 with a tighter bass and more highs.
A3- Similar to the A2 but a softer yet tighter sound(if that makes sense). Very hard to tell the difference between A2 and A3, they do not hold their charge well. I had one completely loss it's charge.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

daddy, than what?

zhang, i have the neo setup too but a friend of mine has an electromagnet that i use when i want to really charge it up good. it only seems to make a diference with the 4 and 5 but they are stronger after the electromagnet. especially in fender style single coils i prefer the tone of using the neo setup

An electromagnet probably does add a touch more oomph to it.

But to my ear, 100% charged mags just don't sound that good -- varying degrees of shrillness/harshness depending on the Alnico grade. To my ear, the neo's in a vice charge them more than plenty and I will almost always weaken them a touch from there.

The exception so far -- I reserve the right to change my mind -- is rod magnets in Strat/Tele style pu's. They seem to sound best fully charged, which is counterintuitive considering they are single coils and are already bright by nature. But (I guess because they are so small) they lose a lot of top end -- too much -- and get dull very quickly with degaussing.

Once in a while I'll hold an A8 briefly against a rod mag pickup while it's in the guitar if it sounds too harsh, but that's rare because they really do seem to sound their best fully charged, or as close to it as the neo's can get them.

 

[revolution]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

I have an old 70s/80s Super 58 in the neck of my Heritage H-150CM and it sounds great...just like the descrip above says...A2 with some nicer highs and more tightness.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

Hi all,

Okay, i have been playing and listening to the A3 loaded 59/Jazz neck pickup for a while now, and have some opinions, although i need to try this through some more amps.

The pickup is in a USA Hamer Studio Custom (mahogany/maple top, Gibson style construction). The bridge pickup is a Custom/59 A5 hybrid. I have left the rest of the wiring as stock....2 x 300K volume pots and 1 x 300K master tone pot.

My impressions so far.....

the volume difference between the A3 neck and A5 bridge is not too outrageous, given that the bridge pup is quite a bit hotter. I needed to offset the pickup heights a little, but not a great deal.

The treble from the A3 neck pup is very 'chime-y' and bell-like. Great detail and open-ness here.

The bass seems to be a bit 'flubby', not in terms of being too much of it, but tonally it just seems kinda loose, whereas the treble seems tighter. If the treble qualities (chime) were happening on the bass strings, there would be that 'piano' sound to them, but it is not like that. The detail seems nowhere near the same (not as good) as the treble.

The mids ?....well i suppose you might expect them to be somewhere between how i describe the bass and treble, and i guess that is pretty much so. There is a decent ammount of mids, without dominating. They are reasonably detailed with some 'chime' but not as much as the treble end. There is a certain degree of looseness, but not the 'flubbiness' of the bass.

Overall i hear the sound as 'soft', gentle, almost pretty, not particularly punchy, though certainly not weak. Harmonically quite rich, but subtle. To my ear, it seems that when strumming slowly across all six strings from low to high, the tone goes from flubby and loose to sweet bright chime at the top.....something which i find a little uncomfortable, but i feel i need to play through a few more amps to get a wider view.

In combination with the Custom/59 A5 bridge pickup, the sound is very complex and pleasing. I think the tightness of the bridge pup's bottom end pulls the bass of the neck pup into line, and the bite from the bridge's top end blends with the bell-like treble from the neck.

All this was heard using a 50 watt non master volume valve (tube) amp (6L6's) at very moderate volume for a nice fullness but no overdive or distortion. Later i kicked in an overdrive pedal and the pickup perfomed well, the trebles sang but there was still some looseness about the lower part of the sound. With overdrive, the harmonic content really shone, though it is a lot more subtle than the bridge pickup, because the bridge pickup has much more widely mismatched coils i guess, and a lot more windings.

The next step is to take this guitar to a friend's house where he has a wide range of amps, and his two very good ears, and run through a whole lot more playing and listening. For myself, at this stage, i would like to be hearing maybe a little less chime on the top end and more chime and less looseness on the bass. Possibly i might need to be using A4, but it is early days for the A3 and so i will post more as soon as more listening has taken place with other amps.

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

Try an a4.

I love my a4 59, really a cool pickup.

To me a4s sound like aged (degaussed) a5s. In the same pickup and guitar, 2 degaussed a5s I have sounded almost the same as the a4s I have tried.

It appears that in your case you'd like them more.

But still I have to confess that an a3 antiquity neck, I believe, is one of the best boutique PAF clones there is.

Good luck,

B

 

[dr.barlo]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

BTW here is an old test of mine:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=35

B

 

[revolution]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

I've had EVERYTHING(nearly) in my Heritage H-150...which in case you don't know...is a Les Paul(a REAL Les Paul). I now have a vintage Alnico III Super 58 Ibanez in the neck position and a vintage Alnico 8 Super 70 pickup in the neck both running straight to 500k volumes and nothing else. This is the best pickup combination I have ever had in this guitar. The Super 70 I didn't like in the neck and the 58 I did not like in the bridge. BTW...both p'ups read about 7.9k and were made by Ibanez. I believe them to be some of if not THE finest P.A.F. clones made in the 70's...INCLUDING the Gibson ones. The mid-range grind of the 70 is unparalled and the 58's sparkled is superior to that of the AL2 mag in my opinion. I may even run the 58 to a 1meg pot because I'm finding that I want even MORE out of the 58.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: A3 magnets? rarely mentioned....how do they compare?

Hi all

I got curious about whether it was possible to measure or compare magnet strengths at home without sophisticated equipment, and i found a couple of items online for a circuit that is so cheap and easy to make it is almost a joke. Basically two components and probably a total cost of $5 or so ! This device then hooks up to a regular voltmeter (digtal) and a pretty simple calulation with the results gives the Gauss of the tested magnet.

Now i am sure that this is not as accurate as some costly test meters that are commercially built for this purpose, but i figure that at least at home, using the same device connected to the same meter, it has to be at least a good method of comparrison. At the moment, i have a few A3 and A5 magnets here, and a ceramic, and have drawn up a table of measurements i've made so far.

I am going to start a new thread for this subject, and am hoping i might be able to get the attention of Zhangliqun and any other folk who may have experience and knowledge of taking readings and what figures are typical for the various magnet types etc. and perhaps methods of degaussing.