Re: Golden Age
From my experience, when it comes to pickups you get what you pay for, and if there's a middle man, in this case Stew Mac, and you purchase an inexpensive pickup, it'll sound like an inexpensive pickup.
Even though that pickup might still sound "good", I doubt it'll sound "great".
The one exception might be pickups purchased directly from Bill Lawrence. Bill builds high quality pickups and sells them direct to the public (without a middle man marking the price up) at what is essencially a wholesale price.
Lew