Re: Dimarzio SDS-1 as a neck pickup?
I have a Dimarzio Virtual Solo in the neck of my Strat-ish guitar. It's the hottest singlecoil-stack DM makes and is mid-heavy sounding ON PAPER. It doesn't sound muddy or boomy at all. It gives very fluid sound something you would get from a humbucker but it retains certain sparkle of normal singlecoils. Very cool pickup. It can do Yngwie-like fluid sounding sweeps or ultra-shred.
I think people are too scared about the EQ-curve companies give them and then they don't put warm pickups in the neck or bright pups in the bridge. It might just be what you need.
F.e. DMZ Air Norton is very warm pickup with hot paf output but it's used primarily as a neck pup (because John Petrucci used it) and it's a killer neck pickup very fluid and puchy. Symphony X's Michael J Romeo even uses The Tone Zone in the neck and it's a very hot pup and even warmer than the Air Norton. So i f the pickup is warm sounding it doesn't mean it can't sound awesome in the neck.
And now to pickup in question, SDS-1. I think it would make very neck pickup. I've always liked warm singlecoils. I'd probably be not as harsh as a normal singlecoil because of the warmer sound a but it should retain the quack very good because it's normal singlecoil, not a stack which do lose some of it due to the stacked coils.