Duncan SSL1, california set

[Chistopher]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

Where do you come up with this stuff?

What do you propose the reason is? That's the best I could come up with. Come to think of it though, my favorite variety of JB is from a knock off brand...

I guess this is the place to disclaim that all of post #59 is speculation based on the facts presented to a man who got up at 3:45 today.

 

[gregory]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

I guess this is the place to disclaim that all of post #59 is speculation based on the facts presented to a man who got up at 3:45 today.

Who you hope to help with all this imaginative and useless speculation?

 

[AlexR]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

The reason why inductance is often not given out and DCR is, is because customers want the the dcr figure because they think its meaningful, and cannot understand the inductance. Lets face it, some even in this thread were even of late convinced that DCR was meaningful - and wasted a lot of time obstinately refusing to listen to sense no matter how many times it was gone over.

But even inductance doesn't give you more than strength of output - and that in a 2D format that only tells you the max and not with the spread of frequency like a speaker chart. There are many more aspects of a pickup that figures don't explain. So the absence of inductance is really meaningless, as to truly know what a pickup is you must play it. No figures will tell you what that is like, so it is pointless adding in numbers that merely confuse. This is where Duncan is way smarter than those who doubt - they know the business and how best to market to the masses.

 

[gregory]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

What was this topic about, again???

Oh yeah...

https://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/california-50s-set

Has the set changed specs during these years, going from 3 exactly same pickups--------> 2 same pickups +slightly overwound bridge, or my memory fails me and it was always like this?

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

But then again, if your selling fakes you might as well take a picture of JBs and ship Epiphones.

That's the truth of the matter. If Chinese counterfeiters wants to knock off as SSL-1, they'll just take a junk pickup and put an SSL-1 sticker on it. Do you think they examine the fine details before they bang out Chibsons they intend to sell for $100? It's a good thing they don't, it makes most counterfeit guitar products identifiable through pictures alone.

As to why they mention DCR as an important fact, I speculate it's because all early pickups were 42AWG (anyone feel free to correct me, that's a big generalization) so DCR was more useful back then as a general indication of tone. Those were also the days when they didn't know the effects magnets had on tone, Gibson for one just tossed in whatever was cheapest at the time. So if your 7.6k PAF is to thin, trade it to your friend with a 8.4k PAF. The DMZ came along and used 16.6k as a selling point for the Super Distortion...

So it's vestigial, that's as good an explanation as any.

But they do give out resonant peaks here if you are interested.

Not real useful, unfortunately.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

While I have no inside knowledge of what information SD chooses to reveal about each wind, I can say it isn't just about people copying the pickup in the East and selling it super cheap. They have a lot of competitors in the West that would love that kind of info. I remember how difficult it was to find out what the milivolt output was for each pickup, and a very specific test had to put together to provide that. In the end, it didn't seem to affect peoples' choices about what pickup to buy.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

That's the truth of the matter. If Chinese counterfeiters wants to knock off as SSL-1, they'll just take a junk pickup and put an SSL-1 sticker on it. Do you think they examine the fine details before they bang out Chibsons they intend to sell for $100? It's a good thing they don't, it makes most counterfeit guitar products identifiable through pictures alone.

I was referring to the places that copy already successful pickups and call them boutique.

Back to the subject at hand.

Something else I found interesting was that the website appears to label the DCR of the noiseless SSL-1s (STK-S4) backwards of what would be a calibrated set. The neck is 8.7, middle is 8.6, and bridge is 8.5. I don't think this is correct either, but I'll admit I probably wouldn't notice if it was. .1k is easy to compensate for in pickup height.

 

[gregory]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

We've discussed the STK-S4 elsewhere, as well as the futility in talking about 100 ohm differences between pickups of the same model.

Neither are on-topic, however.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

We've discussed the STK-S4 elsewhere, as well as the futility in talking about 100 ohm differences between pickups of the same model.

Neither are on-topic, however.

Please excuse me for bringing up the noiseless variety of the pickup we were discussing. That, combined with website errors and calibrated sets, was clearly not relayed to the original topic. I'll go back to talking about whether or not it's wrong for SD to withhold information such as inductance now.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

There's actually no rules against going off topic. It might be impolite to turn the topic to, say, vintage sports cars, but we're still talking about pickups and DC resistances here.

The higher DC resistance for the stacked neck illustrates perfectly the problem with DC resistance and the need for inductance. You can very very easily have a higher DC resistance and a lower inductance. Inductance tells the truth, DC resistance deceives and confuses. Based on the info provided, one could easily assume the neck stack is "slightly overwound" to use their own parlance.

 

[freefrog]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

What was this topic about, again???

This?

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/sho...lifornia-set&p=4148658&viewfull=1#post4148658

For the record, I've here various Strat pickups with similar DCR/inductance and whose tone is not even close: they have not the same stray capacitance, not the same Gauss level, not the same EMF… and when they are measured in the same conditions, they don’t exhibit the same Q factor, loudness, envelope, harmonic response.

I’ve still not found the time to measure my former SSL1’s from the 80’s in the guitar that I’ve sold to a friend… but if I manage to do it I’ll post the results here.

In the meantime, I stand on my post 9: a 6.5k SSL1 reads roughly 2.6H... but I clearly remember a SSL1 showing 6k and 2.2H only, among other low measurements iterations that I had tested in the 90’s.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

I will appreciate if our disagreements can be civil and concentrate on the topic at hand. There is no need to attack other forum members, even if you think their ideas are wrong.

 

[gregory]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

There's actually no rules against going off topic. It might be impolite to turn the topic to, say, vintage sports cars, but we're still talking about pickups and DC resistances here.

Yes, there is:

trolling -- A Troll is defined as a person who is the instigator of multiple disruptions within a conversation or the community as a whole. Such disruptions can include, but are not limited to, posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic posts or messages with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion; repeated arguing of the same position regardless of the thread topic; repeatedly taking contrarian positions solely for the sake of creating discord; repeated derailing of threads; knowingly posting false or fabricated information; following particular user(s) from thread to thread to instigate conflict; and repeated ad hominem attacks.

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?286976-Terms-of-Service-List-of-Admins

...and I need to keep these in mind as well, since I tend to have very strong views and a lot of my posts are fairly contrarian, though they aren't intended to cause discord.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

Yes, there is:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?286976-Terms-of-Service-List-of-Admins

...and I need to keep these in mind as well, since I tend to have very strong views and a lot of my posts are fairly contrarian, they aren't intended to cause discord.

There's a part about "with the deliberate intent..." that you left out there. Too often people play the "off topic" card just to shut down a conversation that somehow bothers them. And when it doesn't, nobody says a word.

 

[gregory]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

How the topic is about anything other than original post is quite the mystery.

It has *nothing* to do with how or why SD should or should not document their products as a general policy. Perhaps I'm wrong on this, but it certainly isn't your call.

The funny part here is I agree with you (for the most part), just not in the way you're going about it.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

How the topic is about anything other than original post is quite the mystery.

It has *nothing* to do with how or why SD should or should not document their products as a general policy. Perhaps I'm wrong on this, but it certainly isn't your call.

The funny part here is I agree with you (for the most part), just not in the way you're going about it.

But who cares? There are ideas worth tossing around that don't warrant a whole new thread.

 

[Riley]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

So - I seem to have missed this thread while I was out of the office last week.

Here's some info straight from our engineering department:

The California 50's set bill of materials calls for an SSL-1 neck, RWRP middle, and SSL-1 bridge. So we do actually build three versions of the SSL-1 that go into the calibrated set.

The difference is subtle, only a few hundred turns, but the bridge pickup is in fact slightly overwound compared to the neck and middle.

I'm still catching up on this thread, but if there are any other questions still hanging let me know and I'll do my best to answer them!

 

[gregory]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

The California 50's set bill of materials calls for an SSL-1 neck, RWRP middle, and SSL-1 bridge. So we do actually build three versions of the SSL-1 that go into the calibrated set.

This contradicts what was said earlier...

About the California 50's Set:

Yes, it does appear that we have a discrepancy on our site with the California 50's set specs. That set has all three DC Res's to be as close to the same as relatively possible.

We also sell a "Calibrated SSL-1 Set", which as a specific descending DC res between each position, having a hotter bridge, less hot middle and less hot neck.

 

[Riley]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

Yes, the earlier post may be a bit mixed up. Although the DCR for all three pickups in the set is very nearly identical, they are wound slightly differently. That may be where the confusion arose.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Duncan SSL1, california set

Over winding a bridge pickup such that it has the same DC R as the neck and middle seems silly. That's not a little boost in output, that's like a non existent boost. Besides, if these are supposed to be vintage repros, you'd not want to make the bridge hotter at all.