Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

daan

daan

New member

like these
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BLACK-DUAL-...689?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item258f70af11
I think I paid $12 for all 3 of the pups I have, with shipping from China. I mostly got them just to see what they sound like. Someone else on here posted something to the effect that they make better fridge magnets than guitar pickups... so I was expecting next to nothing. I was actually pleasantly suprised, they sound good! (I gotta figure out how to post sound clips here, I know just saying a few words doesn't really help you guys.)
I also have a guitar with GFS "Lil Killers", which look pretty much exactly the same (other than chrome rails instead of black ones) I wired those up, and they sound... exactly the same. So I paid like, 13 times as much for the GFS ones as these uber-cheap ones.
Next I gotta go see the friend of mine with a set of real-deal SD Hot Rails, to see exactly what the difference is to those (other than the price...) THe pups I have, all came as a set, but none of them had the same wire colors as each other. THat made it really hard to wire them up, so if you have a hard time with wiring (like I seem to lately) it's worth it to get proper ones so you can use a diagram to get them to work...
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

I was curious about these myself. At 6 bucks a pop it's hard to complain. Almost bought one a couple times but I don't have anything to put it in...
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

I like the look of the black rails. How hot would you say they are? What about the treble /mid/bass balance?
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

firebirdguy72 said:
I was curious about these myself. At 6 bucks a pop it's hard to complain. Almost bought one a couple times but I don't have anything to put it in...
Click to expand...

Now, let's see... $12 for the set of three, uhh...carry the two, and uhh...square root of 8, plus, uhhh, 5...divided by, uhh.........what was that number again?
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

I have another Strat with 70's Strat singles in it, the wiring is the same on both (push/pull vol, 2 tones) Oh yeah, 250K on the singles, 500K on the rails. The rails are only marginally louder than the singles, but when I put all 3 rails on in series, then it's much louder. Louder even than my Tele with 2 HB's. When I switch from the single Strat to the rail strat, it's ...fuller? I don't have to adjust it to make it less biased from high to low, but it just sounds like "more of everything", if that makes any sense. My Dimarzio equipped LP copy sounds muddy/woofy on the same settings, and much clearer on the rails. I know writing words about sound is totally subjective, so I'm trying to be as clear as I can without using stupid adjectives that won't tell you anything. I do have a crappy practice type amp (Peavey Trans-tube) with the fake tube part on, on the Strat with singles, I have to turn it up a LOT higher to get the nice overdrive/distortion sound. LIke, 6 or 7 on the singles, and maybe 3 with the rails. With all 3 in series, it's like stepping on a dimed dirt pedal.
I'd say "well worth the $12", if you're considering rails from any non-name brand, just get these instead of paying a lot more. I checked out a bunch of other rail pups on line and they look 99% the same as what I have, why spend the extra $ buying them from a re-seller who just slaps a sticker on the bottom of the same pups I have.
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

I would prefer that you wouldn't say "fake". They do nothing to pretend that these are from an established brand and I don't see any problem with their labeling or description.
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

uOpt said:
I would prefer that you wouldn't say "fake". They do nothing to pretend that these are from an established brand and I don't see any problem with their labeling or description.
Click to expand...

Perhaps "generic hotrails"? :beerchug:
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

Sorry bout the comment... was severely pissed off yesterday. Three different A holes gave me the run around on craigslist yesterday. Plus car troubles and that I got no sleep didn't help... Again sorry guitardoc...
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

firebirdguy72 said:
Sorry bout the comment... was severely pissed off yesterday. Three different A holes gave me the run around on craigslist yesterday. Plus car troubles and that I got no sleep didn't help... Again sorry guitardoc...
Click to expand...

Sorry about the crappy day man! But hey, the weekend is almost here! :friday:
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

treyhaislip said:
You link proves you are correct...OP says "$12" hence GuitarDoc's witty post. Just some friendly levity :stooges:
Click to expand...


I should have specified that I bought mine more than a year ago, and am just now getting them into a playable guitar...
oops. They are more $ than when I bought them. Occasionally there are some listed as 0.99/make offer, I offered $3 each and they came back with $4... but they're still super cheap at $6. I would have just gotten a set of SD's rails if I could have afforded them.
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

Yeah don't call 'em fakes. They don't label themselves as an SD nor do they try to say they're SD. Fakes implies that they're copies of SD's pups without proper licensing or compensation of some form.
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

firebirdguy72 said:
Sorry bout the comment... was severely pissed off yesterday. Three different A holes gave me the run around on craigslist yesterday. Plus car troubles and that I got no sleep didn't help... Again sorry guitardoc...
Click to expand...

No problem. Sorry about your bad day.
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

Go to gearguysradio.com and you can get some really solid sound advice on pups or anything guitar related. I would never buy these cheap chinese pups. Even the Duncan Design aren't as musical as actual S.D. pups. If you really want unique check out zexcoil pups. I use S.D. Antiquity pups in my semi hollow's, Pauls and D'Marzzio in my Fender's.
 
Re: Fake Hot Rails from Ebay

cory.alexander.5268 said:
Go to gearguysradio.com and you can get some really solid sound advice on pups or anything guitar related. I would never buy these cheap chinese pups. Even the Duncan Design aren't as musical as actual S.D. pups. If you really want unique check out zexcoil pups. I use S.D. Antiquity pups in my semi hollow's, Pauls and D'Marzzio in my Fender's.
Click to expand...

Or you could come here to get some really solid sound advice on pickups.

Sometimes inexpensive stuff surprises.

Thanks for spamming your site. :bigthumb:
 
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