Need help on Low output Antiquity P-90 Dog Eared neck PU

[Diabolik]

I recently installed a set of Antiquity P-90 dog eareds on my epiphone es-295 hollow body.
The vintage output I've noticed is really low and the Antiquity magnets are pretty degaussed.
The neck pick up is really quiet and the output is incredibly low and midrangey. I'm going to to swap out the magnets
with alnico 5's fully charged. That should solve the mid range issue. Is the low output common for this style of vintage output?
I'm wondering if the output is due to the winding? It seems like a defect cuz the output is so low. I'm wondering if the fully gaussed magnets will boost the output?
Any advice appreciated

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Need help on Low output Antiquity P-90 Dog Eared neck PU

Welcome to the forum!

I don't have any experience with the Ant P90s but I do have several Ant single coils which should be weaker. And for neck and middle position everything sounds right and there's a full sound with my Ant single coils. It's natural to have a thinner sound in bridge position with a low wind and degaussed magnets, but if it's super weak even in neck position something else could be up. The wiring is always the 1st thing to check, bad solder joints, sometimes a pot gets cooked, etc. You can also use a meter to check that the DCR of the pickups are reading full. Ohhh, I just thought about something else, since they're dog ears maybe they're sitting too far away from the strings??

 

[Diabolik]

Re: Need help on Low output Antiquity P-90 Dog Eared neck PU

Welcome to the forum!

I don't have any experience with the Ant P90s but I do have several Ant single coils which should be weaker. And for neck and middle position everything sounds right and there's a full sound with my Ant single coils. It's natural to have a thinner sound in bridge position with a low wind and degaussed magnets, but if it's super weak even in neck position something else could be up. The wiring is always the 1st thing to check, bad solder joints, sometimes a pot gets cooked, etc. You can also use a meter to check that the DCR of the pickups are reading full. Ohhh, I just thought about something else, since they're dog ears maybe they're sitting too far away from the strings??

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to check the wiring. Everything seems connected. I had a reputable luthier do a rewire on it recently. I'll try the meter on the pickups. Any good meters you could recommend?

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Need help on Low output Antiquity P-90 Dog Eared neck PU

You're welcome. I got the most inexpensive one on ebay, and apparently they vary in quality so I'll let someone else recommend you a meter. But any multi meter will be able to tell wether the pickup is reading full for the most part.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Need help on Low output Antiquity P-90 Dog Eared neck PU

aged magnets make a big diffrence. assuming the coil is fine on the pup then swapping the aged a2 for full strength a5 will make a big difference.

make sure the magnets are correctly configured, they should be repelling each other until they connect to the keeper bar. as in south facing south or north facing north. if they are south facing north, youll get very low output