Duncan SSL-1's Compared to Antiquity II Surfers

[jeremy]

Re: Duncan SSL-1's Compared to Antiquity II Surfers

alnico 2 and alnico 5 dont sound the same even at the same gauss. dimarzios airbucker "technology" or adding a bit a space between the pole and magnet does change the sound but i dont hear it emulating a different magnet. im not going to try and convince you of something you dont want to believe but i can tell you that changes to the wind will create audible differences to my ears

 

[thanaton]

Re: Duncan SSL-1's Compared to Antiquity II Surfers

alnico 2 and alnico 5 dont sound the same even at the same gauss. dimarzios airbucker "technology" or adding a bit a space between the pole and magnet does change the sound but i dont hear it emulating a different magnet.

I said "Somewhat related, the premise of DiMarzio's "Air-Bucker technology" is that they can use a more stable, fully charged AlNiCo 5 bar, but get the characteristic of a degaussed AlNiCo 5,"

im not going to try and convince you of something you dont want to believe but i can tell you that changes to the wind will create audible differences to my ears

It's not that I don't want to believe, it's that I want to know what is true for certain. Seymour Duncan makes lots of great pickups, I have a lot of them, but they are in the business of selling pickups. Their marketing copy doesn't constitute hard science.

Deguassing an SSL-1, making it dirty, and calling it something cool is not too different from changing the AlNiCo 5 magnet/magnets in a pickup to AlNiCo 2, and then calling it something cool. I do not consider them to be rip-offs because of this, it's just creative marketing meant to add excitement to an otherwise dull subject. I love electronics, so it's not dull to me, but most guitarists would be underwhelmed by the facts of the matter.

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: Duncan SSL-1's Compared to Antiquity II Surfers

What reduction in picofarads can we expect from a scatter wound coil? Using a shorter guitar cable also reduces the distributed capacitance too, since as a single passive circuit, the guitar cable is essentially another part of the pickup, so claiming that you've done something to increase or decrease said capacitance is not especially remarkable. For reference, every foot of guitar cable increases the distributed capacitance by anywhere from 15 to 30 picofarads, depending upon the quality of the cable.

Bare Knuckle Pickups have made a name for themselves with scatterwinding, here's what they have to say about it - "Scatterwinding by hand can be time consuming but it has many advantages over conventional machine winding, not least a far superior sound. When a coil is scatterwound, the wire isn't as close or even, layer on layer, as with a machine and this lowers the distributed capacitance that exists between the turns of the wire. Lower capacitance allows more top end through, the resonant peak increases slightly and the pickup has a flatter frequency response across its range. The result is a clearer, more open sound that has the impression of being louder purely by the amount of extra detail and dynamics present."

Secondly, each scatter-wound pickup will sound slightly unique. You can scatter-wind ten pickups with the same wire and number of turns, but each will sound different.

Sound different how? Through what mechanism?

Scatterwinding affects the inductance, which totally affects the sound of the pickup. It also changes how the coil reacts with the magnetic field since the coils lay differently on the bobbin when you scatterwind. It will typically be a phyically larger coil for a given turn count, but will have less DC resistance, again due to how the coil lays on the bobbin when scatterwound.

How the coil sees a magnetic field and the amount of inductance of the pickup are serious tone factors.

The Alnico II magnets are slightly demagnetzed to capture the sound of an aged magnet

OK, there's no promise of specificity here, except to say "slightly". As I was saying, exacting specificity this would be difficult to manage.

... and the wire, insulation and bobbins are also treated with special processes to capture the look

Again, I'd ask how, and through what mechanism do the bits of dirt and stain effect the sonic result?

That's a strawman argument where you are arguing against something that was never stated. Nobody ever said that cosmetic aging has an appreciable or measurable effect on tone.

Yes you're right about cosmetic aging not affecting tone but then again... most people win arguments against their own strawmen... it's debating 101.

What's missing in all of these claims is results to back up the claims being made, something to the effect "we first measured a traditionally constructed pickup, it had values A, B and C. We then specially constructed and treated this new pickup, and it now has values X, Y and Z."

Yeah well... the musical gear industry as a whole doesn't operate like that.

Fender, Gibson, DiMarzio, Bill Lawrence, Bare Knuckle, Throbak, WCR etc. have never operated that way. In fact, I've never seen ANY musical gear company operate in that manner. Why would they?

What example of any other company putting out the results of "Measuring a traditionally constructed piece of gear, with values of A, B and C... while showing values of X, Y and Z from using different construction techniques" would you have ever possibly seen? Company's put out spec sheets and thats about all you ever get from ANYONE. Why would you expect Seymour Duncan to be any different?

There are: dedicated tone charts, sound samples, video demos, specs on the website, blog articles going into greater detail about specific products... a customer service staff... a dedicated user group website with people ready to answer your questions... thats actually a lot of information.

Marshall has a right to tell you what they feel comfortable telling you, so as not to give away important proprietary information... the same thing with Fender and Gibson... EVERYBODY operates this way.

If you look clearly at this situation, you'll find that Seymour Duncan is one of the most accessible and open companies when it comes to information about their products. You have all of the information you need to choose the pickup that's right for you.

 

[thanaton]

Re: Duncan SSL-1's Compared to Antiquity II Surfers

Bare Knuckle Pickups have made a name for themselves with scatterwinding, here's what they have to say about it - "Scatterwinding by hand can be time consuming but it has many advantages over conventional machine winding, not least a far superior sound. When a coil is scatterwound, the wire isn't as close or even, layer on layer, as with a machine and this lowers the distributed capacitance that exists between the turns of the wire. Lower capacitance allows more top end through, the resonant peak increases slightly and the pickup has a flatter frequency response across its range. The result is a clearer, more open sound that has the impression of being louder purely by the amount of extra detail and dynamics present."

That's thick with marketing talk. The only technically true statement is that the resonant peak increases slightly. The rest is a restatement of what happens when the resonant peak goes up; the response become flatter by virtue of the resonant peak having moved to a higher end of the audible spectrum. There is no technical basis on which to claim that reduced capacitance results in improved dynamics. That simply doesn't happen. The manner in which Bare Knuckle Pickups takes one difference and tries to make it sound like five differences is exactly the sort of marketing subterfuge I'm talking about.

Scatterwinding affects the inductance, which totally affects the sound of the pickup.

It doesn't effect inductance by much, and neither Seymour Duncan nor Bare Knuckle claimed it will. Inductance is determined by how efficiently the coil can form a magnetic field, and that's mostly a function of the coil's overall geometry.

It also changes how the coil reacts with the magnetic field since the coils lay differently on the bobbin when you scatterwind. It will typically be a phyically larger coil for a given turn count, but will have less DC resistance, again due to how the coil lays on the bobbin when scatterwound.

How the coil sees a magnetic field and the amount of inductance of the pickup are serious tone factors.

The DC resistance is the same with or without scatter winding. The frequency dependent impedance will change along with changes to inductance and capacitance, but that's a different issue, and again, you don't know to what degree these factors change with scatter winding applied, you're only assuming they're significant. You're not even certain what the scatter winding process entails, and how the end result looks different from a machine wound example, you're just assuming that the difference is significant. You say a scatter wound coil is fatter; have you ever taken a caliper to the coils and measured them, for example?

That's a strawman argument where you are arguing against something that was never stated. Nobody ever said that cosmetic aging has an appreciable or measurable effect on tone.

Yes you're right about cosmetic aging not affecting tone but then again... most people win arguments against their own strawmen... it's debating 101.

If you look at the marketing copy you quoted, it makes that allusion:

"The Alnico II magnets are slightly demagnetzed to capture the sound of an aged magnet, and the wire, insulation and bobbins are also treated with special processes to capture the look and, more importantly, the sonic results of decades of use."

They didn't have to entangle the aesthetic and the functional considerations in the pickup's design, but they did anyway.

Yeah well... the musical gear industry as a whole doesn't operate like that.

Fender, Gibson, DiMarzio, Bill Lawrence, Bare Knuckle, Throbak, WCR etc. have never operated that way. In fact, I've never seen ANY musical gear company operate in that manner. Why would they?

It's obvious why they wouldn't, because most consumers of audio equipment can't relate performance specs to audible quality. It's a category in which the consumer has to take the manufacturer at their word. The automotive world, as an example, is different. People know what torque and horsepower are, and why they matter. Acceleration is not subjective, and so people demand specs.

What example of any other company putting out the results of "Measuring a traditionally constructed piece of gear, with values of A, B and C... while showing values of X, Y and Z from using different construction techniques" would you have ever possibly seen? Company's put out spec sheets and thats about all you ever get from ANYONE. Why would you expect Seymour Duncan to be any different?

Cellphone companies saying their new model holds 1000 more pictures, or has a few more hours of battery life than the previous model, is a common example of this.

There are: dedicated tone charts, sound samples, video demos, specs on the website, blog articles going into greater detail about specific products... a customer service staff... a dedicated user group website with people ready to answer your questions... thats actually a lot of information.

The "tone chart" http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/product-news/pickup-comparison-chart is available, and it's useful. I refer to it from time to time.

Marshall has a right to tell you what they feel comfortable telling you, so as not to give away important proprietary information... the same thing with Fender and Gibson... EVERYBODY operates this way.

This isn't about what companies have a right to do, it's about us being vigilant as consumers. As I've noted about some of the marketing copy above, it's not (intentionally) outright false, but it is somewhat misleading in the way they choose to phrase and present information.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Duncan SSL-1's Compared to Antiquity II Surfers

Oh dear, has DreX returned.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Duncan SSL-1's Compared to Antiquity II Surfers

howd you know?!?!