Are All Alnico's Created Equal???

[Nostalgic Distortion]

So I briefly looked into this once before but I never really got a definitive answer. Are all Alnico and ceramic magnets for that matter, created equally? Is there any real difference between the A5 in a CUSTOM-5 and the A5 magnets that I just pulled out of a set of Epi. Pro. Humbucker's?


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I've put up a picture above of two Alnico 5 bar magnets. One of them is from a SH-14 that I bought new so I absolutely know that it's the original magnet & the other is a A5 that I pulled out of a cheap Chinese humbucker. I've got the Duncan flipped over so you can't see the stamp & all other markings have been removed. I've gotta say, they look a heck of a lot alike!!!

I'm just wondering if there's any difference between them in tone? I was going to do a little experiment with a TB-11 and one of the EPI. mags but the TB-11 that I was going to be using in the experiment was D.O.A. so I had to send it back for a refund. The idea was to remove the A2 from the C.C., drop in the cheap A5, & then A/B the two of them in Stratocasters. I was going to be using single humbucker guards & both of them would just be running off one 500K pot but the broken C.C. tossed a grenade in that cause!

It looked like he somehow jammed his pick into the coil & then he tapped it back up and sold it, like I'm not going to notice that the pickup has absolutely no output??? Luckily for me I always read any used pickups with my multimeter before I even think about doing anything else with them so he had a pretty hard time saying it was user error.... Flipping A-hole!!! :cussing:

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Are All Alnico's Created Equal???

So I briefly looked into this once before but I never really got a definitive answer. Are all Alnico and ceramic magnets for that matter, created equally? Is there any real difference between the A5 in a CUSTOM-5 and the A5 magnets that I just pulled out of a set of Epi. Pro. Humbucker's?


View attachment 70645


I've put up a picture above of two Alnico 5 bar magnets. One of them is from a SH-14 that I bought new so I absolutely know that it's the original magnet & the other is a A5 that I pulled out of a cheap Chinese humbucker. I've got the Duncan flipped over so you can't see the stamp & all other markings have been removed. I've gotta say, they look a heck of a lot alike!!!

I'm just wondering if there's any difference between them in tone? I was going to do a little experiment with a TB-11 and one of the EPI. mags but the TB-11 that I was going to be using in the experiment was D.O.A. so I had to send it back for a refund. The idea was to remove the A2 from the C.C., drop in the cheap A5, & then A/B the two of them in Stratocasters. I was going to be using single humbucker guards & both of them would just be running off one 500K pot but the broken C.C. tossed a grenade in that cause!

It looked like he somehow jammed his pick into the coil & then he tapped it back up and sold it, like I'm not going to notice that the pickup has absolutely no output??? Luckily for me I always read any used pickups with my multimeter before I even think about doing anything else with them so he had a pretty hard time saying it was user error.... Flipping A-hole!!! :cussing:

I don't know about 100% equal but I think they are very closely equals...that bum wasn't me was it??

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Are All Alnico's Created Equal???

I don't know about 100% equal but I think they are very closely equals...that bum wasn't me was it??

No, it was a eBay thing, surprise! The pickup was in a guard that I bought, it was routed for a single humbucker/single volume but there was some other holes I assume for toggles too. The pickup was still hooked up to the potentiometer so I did have to disconnect it but that's all I did. He didn't give me too much of a hassle when I returned it but he wasn't exactly very nice either!!!

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Are All Alnico's Created Equal???

No, it was a eBay thing, surprise! The pickup was in a guard that I bought, it was routed for a single humbucker/single volume but there was some other holes I assume for toggles too. The pickup was still hooked up to the potentiometer so I did have to disconnect it but that's all I did. He didn't give me too much of a hassle when I returned it but he wasn't exactly very nice either!!!

Oh good!...well, glad it wasn't one of the pickups I sold/traded with ya! lol Bummer that you had to go through all of that hassle.

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Are All Alnico's Created Equal???

In hindsight I did only pay less than $35 for it but if it wasn't working he should have just said so & tried to get $25 for it as is? Maybe I could have taken it apart and fixed it somehow but I knew as soon as I touched a screw my refund was out the door...

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Are All Alnico's Created Equal???

To answer your question:

Yes, they can be from the same grade (A2, A3, A4, A5, A8, etc}, yet sound very different at times.

There are extremely expensive ones that sound bad, and fairly cheap ones that sound marvelous.

The only way to know if a certain mag would sound "good" in a certain p'up, in a certain guitar, is by trial-and-error. Why? Because only YOU can know what "good" sounds like.

HTH,

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Are All Alnico's Created Equal???

Thank fellas, guess I'll give it a whirl & see how things turn out. My L.P. has a C.S.F.M. SH-5/SH1 59N set in it right now & although it sounds awesome I think I'd rather have a SH-14? Just not a fan of ceramics, a friend actually talked me into buying this over the SH-14 but I should have gone with my gut.

So instead of spending another upwards of $90 for a new SH-14 just because it has black and white bobbins I'd much rather swap the ceramic with a A5 essentially giving me the exact same pickups only in a black and white zebra package! The SH-5 would become a zebra SH-14 & my white SH-14 will probably just end up with the ceramic that comes out of the SH-5 in it? Maybe not, I've got a lot of A5 magnets hanging around. Perhaps I should try the ceramic in some other pickup just for turds & squirts? I bet it would do something fun to a Pegasus???