Ibanez Inf 1 & 2 vs. Inf 3 & 4

[Rockin Rob]

Can anyone please explain the difference between these two sets? I have the chance to swap out my crappy powersound humbuckers in my GRX20 with either of these two sets (acquired for free from a friend who just upgraded both his Ibanez guitars with Duncans). I'm on a tight budget and this seems like a wise upgrade, only I can't decide which to use or a combo of each. Any advise would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[jeremy]

Re: Ibanez Inf 1 & 2 vs. Inf 3 & 4

anything is better than those awful powersound things.

the 1 and 3 are ceramic magnet neck pups, the 2 and 4 are alnico 5 bridge pups.

i think i like the 1/2 better. a little less flat sounding

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Ibanez Inf 1 & 2 vs. Inf 3 & 4

IMO, INFs aren't massively better than Powersound but, at the price, you cannot lose. My gut instinct is to go Alnico neck PU, ceramic bridge PU.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: Ibanez Inf 1 & 2 vs. Inf 3 & 4

at the Ibanez site we discussed the this subject
Including a brief tutorial on changing the neck pickups magnet and AIRing the pickup out

( a trick I learned here at SD Forum)
http://forum.ibanez.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=79859

and here I posted some sound clips of the INF3 - INF3s - INF4 that came on my RG4

http://www.purevolume.com/EHDWULD

but if you are the RockingRob I think you are then you already know that

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Ibanez Inf 1 & 2 vs. Inf 3 & 4

In the past, the 1-2 set was often labelled as 'medium output', while the 3-4 is evidently hotter (I'm thinking of the measurements edhwuld posted in another thread).

The main problem with stock Ibanez pups is the muddy neck pickup owing to the ceramic magnet. Swapping the bridge and neck mags in such a scenario might be worth while, giving you a ceramic bridge and alnico neck. Doing the air mod also helps in cleaning up a pu. For more presence/harmonics, a coil from a different pu really does the trick - I did this to my stock neck Powersound (slug coil from INF2 in fact + air mod) and now it sounds really good.

Moral of the story: snag some cheap pups and experiment.