Duncan Designed.........Trash or Treasure!?!?!?

[PicoRiveraTele]

There's quite a number of posts from Duncan employees and other winders on this very forum that would refute a number of things being asserted here. Simply because the basic recipe is bobbin, wire, magnet, you seem to believe anyone with those materials is equal in ability to produce an equivalent pickup.

Of course they say a pickup is more than the sum of it parts, they have to believe that so that you won't run to the cheap Chinese clones. But all the ways in which they are distinct are vague and hard to pin down, in other words, purely psychological. And a lot of people who have bought domestic pickups want to believe it too, to justify their investment into what they have already purchased.

The variety of domestic pickups is still larger than cheap import pickups, most of them are OEM that end up in fully assembled guitars, only a fraction are sold as a stand alone product, so there are pickups with qualities that you can only find domestic made, but if the Chinese manufacturers decide to produce the same pickup, it will sound the same as the domestic version.

 

[beaubrummels]

Of course they say a pickup is more than the sum of it parts, they have to believe that so that you won't run to the cheap Chinese clones. But all the ways in which they are distinct are vague and hard to pin down, in other words, purely psychological. And a lot of people who have bought domestic pickups want to believe it too, to justify their investment into what they have already purchased.

The variety of domestic pickups is still larger than cheap import pickups, most of them are OEM that end up in fully assembled guitars, only a fraction are sold as a stand alone product, so there are pickups with qualities that you can only find domestic made, but if the Chinese manufacturers decide to produce the same pickup, it will sound the same as the domestic version.

The conversations I read were not marketing or psychological. They were discussing very specific controls around wire thickness and insulation, methods of layering the wire, geometry changes due to the rigidity or flexibility of the bobbins, and control of the magnetic field through materials and shape of screws, slugs and heads of the screws. All these things were measured and controlled to get a specific sonic outcome. If you believe cheap Chinese clones are equivalent without that research and those controls, enjoy. No wrong answers if you like the sound you're getting.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

The conversations I read were not marketing or psychological. They were discussing very specific controls around wire thickness and insulation, methods of layering the wire, geometry changes due to the rigidity or flexibility of the bobbins, and control of the magnetic field through materials and shape of screws, slugs and heads of the screws. All these things were measured and controlled to get a specific sonic outcome. If you believe cheap Chinese clones are equivalent without that research and those controls, enjoy. No wrong answers if you like the sound you're getting.

"Sonic outcome" you say, did they make the pickup sound more lively? Did they give the pickup punch? It's all subjective, and they have over active imaginations. If they really knew what they were doing, they would understand what they're doing, and clearly they don't.

 

[Ewizard]

I will say this, cheap pickups can be cheap in every way. I'm not going to say that a plastic bobbin, wound with 44awg heavy formvar wire, and a cheap ceramic magnet with pot metal slugs is going to sound good; it probably won't. Cheap pickups have increased in quality lately. Mainly because the manufacturers realize that the competition is fierce and a few pennies more won't hurt them. GFS is an example. For a budget brand, they sell decent pickups.

If a cheap pickup maker sets out to copy a design, it won't be hard. There are only three main wire gauges and you can pretty much look at the wire and tell if it's heavy formvar, plain enamel, or poly. The magnets are again pretty easy to sus out. Now imagine running a large business selling pickups. You want to have manufacturing be as cost-effective as possible. So you will try and have as many things run on the same machine as you can, or be very easy to change out as needed for a different product. For all we know, there are half a dozen pickups made at a Vendor you love and trust that are all the same except for the magnet, or the wire type or size. Changing only one thing can make a difference. When you have 20 to 30 different pickups in your lineup, it is very hard to have 20-30 different processes to make them all en masse.

The fact that you can buy a decent pickup for around $20 tells you just how easy and cheap it is to make the things. In a truly blind test, I would will a good bet that a large percentage of listeners wouldn't be able to tell which one is the $100 or $20 one. What separates the men from the boys is that a really good pickup winder/designer can come to a recipe that sounds how they want it and the majority of users will like it. It's not making everyone in the room happy, it's making ALL the ones that matter happy.

 

[Artie]

But all the ways in which they are distinct are vague and hard to pin down, in other words, purely psychological.

I have to somewhat disagree. A difference can be real, while still being very subtle. It's the lifeblood of most "audio" forums. When I first did my de-mud mod on the 59, I did it with a switch. The difference was there, but subtle. Probably no one in the audience would hear it. But I could, and so can most people who've tried it. Maybe not the best analogy, since it involves switching in a sound shaping external component.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

I have to somewhat disagree. A difference can be real, while still being very subtle. It's the lifeblood of most "audio" forums. When I first did my de-mud mod on the 59, I did it with a switch. The difference was there, but subtle. Probably no one in the audience would hear it. But I could, and so can most people who've tried it. Maybe not the best analogy, since it involves switching in a sound shaping external component.

Can be real, assuming it's real, even though logic says that it's not. If the particulars of coil winding were mysterious, it would have ramifications in all inductor and transformer designs. If winding a pickup caused the sound to become "punchy" or "warm", to use some common vague adjectives, then any audio passed though an inductor or transformer would undergo similar time dependent distortions, and it would be a highly observable and understood phenomena. But of course that's not the case, the special attributes that are associated with the coils of guitar pickups alone, are wholly imagined.

 

[Artie]

Can be real, assuming it's real, even though logic says that it's not. If the particulars of coil winding were mysterious, it would have ramifications in all inductor and transformer designs. If winding a pickup caused the sound to become "punchy" or "warm", to use some common vague adjectives, then any audio passed though an inductor or transformer would undergo similar time dependent distortions, and it would be a highly observable and understood phenomena. But of course that's not the case, the special attributes that are associated with the coils of guitar pickups alone, are wholly imagined.

But then, are you saying that there's no difference between a Jensen or Lundahl, and say, a Radio Shack transformer. Or a Hammond and a Mercury Magnetics?

 

[beaubrummels]

"Sonic outcome" you say, did they make the pickup sound more lively? Did they give the pickup punch? It's all subjective, and they have over active imaginations. If they really knew what they were doing, they would understand what they're doing, and clearly they don't.

So, it's your position that if you don't hear an audible difference no one else can, no one at Seymour Duncan knows what they are doing, their research and testing accomplishes nothing, and you know more than anyone on the forum?