Farkus,
Here over time you would find many (and more) passionate people about their tone. I have tried some of the stuff available, and am talking about my humble opinion regarding those. And the other thing is that the guitars that I have used them in are different than yours. The most critical thing in a pickup search is to match the guitar with a specific pickup.
That said, your ash strat can accomodate C5 very well. The result would be alittle on the wild side, I would think. At least these were my findings. Alnico 5 magnet makes C's sound scooped, bass and high become pronounced and defined, and you would not have that much mids. I would say that it is not what I would try, because ash already has great definition and highs.
I love a5 PAFs but they always are running close to the ridge of being thin. Some were thus I had to let them go. But others that I have kept were of PAF with an a5 magnet. Particularly, my 8.75K PG+, 8.70K Antiquity Bridge with an a5, 8.40K Timbucker (2 of them), are not thin. So you might wanna try an antiquity with an a5 magnet. It is a winner, and one of the pickups that kept mentioned in any though comparison with the real deal PAFs. Think of Clapton's Beano tones, think of Pagey's tones.
But when it comes to SD custom's in bright guitars (especially those with a tremolo bridge) me thinks the result is unbearably thin, and too scooped. The bass becomes in your face, the highs relatively too focused, the uppermid scream sometimes gets annoying (well that particular issue was the reason why I let my Rio Grande BBQ go), virtually no lowermids! I love lowermids in a "gain" pickup. gotta have them, either from the wood or the pickup.
Now if you were to look for a C pikcup in an all korina or mahogany body guitar, I would right away say go ahead and try the C5. Yet in a bright guitar (I love bright wood, ash hardash walnut, maple) especially in one with great definition such as ash, the first pickup I would try would be a Custom Custom! GReat pickup, but it does not pretend to be a beefied (a5) PAF which c5 does (and I don't think it does a very good job to that regard. I know many forumites here do not agree with me on this). It is a throaty, solid and THICK tone. It is not that defined, so there it is different from c5 as well.
I was looking for a HB between c5 and c2 (=CC). Both had great aspects, but I wanted to form a convex combination of them. Well Alnico 3 magnet does that! SO what I mean to say is:
1. Try a CC
2. If you don't like it I would suggest you buy some magnets, an a5 and an a3, then (it is not difficult, shoot me a pm if necc I can walk you through it) do the mag swap.
You would be getting closer to what you exactly want.
Custom series are great pickups, very responsive to mag mods!
B
