Are all Hum Cancelling Singles just as quiet?

[MetalManiac]

Ive noticed several of the major pickup companies make hum cancelling single coils. You can find at least 4 hum cancelling designs of the top of my head.
Are all of the different companies pickups functionally as quiet as each other, leaving the sond or tone as the main differentiating factor, or is one particular design the most hum free/ quiet?

 

[sonnyblu]

Re: Are all Hum Cancelling Singles just as quiet?

Well you are still gonna pick the one that has the best tone for you, that sounds the best.

I haven't tried Seymour's... But I have tried Lace Golds and DiMarzio Area's 58. 61, Pro
I like them both... I guess the Lace is not a true humbucking. But I still like them a lot.
.

 

[Despair]

Re: Are all Hum Cancelling Singles just as quiet?

I'd expect some variation. They use different shielding techniques, some may cancel noise less perfectly to attempt to preserve more of the original tone, some don't even bother with shielding instead relying on the stack to deal with all the noise...

There's also differences in tolerance.

I don't know who is least noisy or generally best in the current generation. DiMarzio's current models have some divergence in tone from a vintage single coil (and not because they're noise cancelling). Kinman tends towards brasher sounding A5 designs. Opinions vary wildly on Bill Lawrence's AirGap models.

The Lace models I've tried just struck me as weird, though I haven't tried the Hot Gold that fans claimed was much closer to a classic single coil tone. [I've tried a red dually, silver middle and blue neck in a Strat Ultra. I think I'd have liked blue bridge, gold middle & silver neck better... but there are a ton of new variants now.]

I'd probably choose based on tone. If you like Seymour Duncan's single coils, they're the only manufacturers doing a precise duplicate of a particular known single coil as a noiseless pickup that I know of.