Beaubrummels, I agree and I thank you to evoke Pepe, a.k.a. LtKojak... I wish he was still there to share his experience.
To the OP: +1 about the idea that a SH2 with short A5 mag is close to T-Tops and "pre T-Top" HB's. Even the regular Jazz with a long mag can be set to sound similar to my ears.
That said, an Epi Dot has typically a snappier attack and slightly less mid focused tone IME than a Gibson ES335, especially if the Gibson is an old one.
Contemporary A5 also risks to be brighter and more boomy than vintage A5 because more gaussed (I've evoked in your other topic the difference between vintage and modern iterations of a "same" alloy).
If I wanted to mimic an old 335 with short A5 bars I'd mount a weaker AlNi(Co) to compensate these differences. Or some vintage magnets. Or faithful repros of old magnets... Throbak sells US made RC bars based on vintage recipes, FWIW.
Bridge Seth Lover : I've once fitted one with an old Gibson short A5 magnet. It sounded glorious but not like an early Patent Sticker HB.
Never tried A5 in a 57 Classic. But I'd trust what is said here in post 2 (whose content agrees implicitly with my 4th paragraph above) :
https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/57...magnet.390003/
Now words are cheap, reality is made of countless factors, and nothing is worth personal experience : buy various AlNi(Co) bars (short AND long), try them all in your guitar and trust your ears rather than some label on a magnet...
The last time I've modified underwound non-Gibson HB's to make them sound like old T-Tops, I've used short bars, but made of A2. Recent A5 was making the tone way too harsh in this case, even with RC mags. It could have been different with other coils.
Good luck in your quest.
