Please excuse the aside. As time goes on I'm finding it's not that simple. I don't think the magnet merely contributes to an end tone, but is an end unto itself, apart from whatever the coil is doing. The coil's electronic properties are one thing, but how the magnetic field of a particular alloy allows the string and the coil to interact is another, separate and distinct from the coil wind, it's inductance or it's Q factor. In that respect, I think magnet choice is more akin to raising or lowering a pickup. Steve Blucher of DiMarzio said something to the effect "
I could wind a pickup with ceramic and you'd never guess it was ceramic", but I don't know if I believe that, both because of this idea that the magnet and the coil have two different jobs, they don't merely sum together to create some sort of "tonal total", but also because of the prevailing conventional wisdom that A2 is soft and spongy, A5 is bright and snappy, and ceramic is piercing and immediate, that seems to pervade across many different pickup winds. If it all really just mushed together, I don't think we'd see this happening. So I am surprised to see an A2 and an A5 humbucker recommended as a pair, because I think they are different "balls of wax" if you're a discerning player. It's not just a change in tone, it's a change in feel, and that could be a jarring switch in one guitar.
According to the somewhat accurate SD Tone Chart, there's not a single bridge/neck set in the entire Duncan line that mixes magnets unless you count the "Five-Twos". I don't know if choosing a magnet will be on the table if the forum pickup goal is to make a neck companion for the '59/Custom, but there's some food for thought.
