Re: Seymour Duncan SH5 vs. Seymour Duncan SH11 Custom Custom
For an Ibanez, you want a TB-5, not SH-5, for the polepieces to line up best with the strings. Not the end of the world if they don't, just may affect tone on some strings a bit if you try to fix volume balance. If you play with enough gain/compression, tends to matter very little.
EVH's said that the room sound on VH I was actually like VH II. Assuming that's not entirely a smokescreen, the sizzle on the first album is mostly from EQ and miking.
Custom doesn't have the low end squish of his lead tracks. Yes, some of that is the amp, but the closest I've heard to EVH's early whammy track tones are from A2 pickups of various flavors.
Yes, rhythm tracks are deeper and tighter, that's the Super 70 [A8 magnet in a lower middle output 42AWG wind].
Fair Warning has the most present sizzle out of any of his pre-Hagar stuff. But that may be EQ or distortion pedal use, again. [Yeah, he claims not to use as more than a buffer, but if so why do they constantly show up in his effects signal chain?]
How EVH gets his tone really doesn't matter, though. What matters is how you can get the tone you want... Which even if you are aiming for his tones, may not be remotely like how he did.