the LW HM is by far the hottest pickup I´ve tried so far.
AFAIK (and believe) the only thing hotter would be a Custom livewire with a ceramic magnet instead of alnico (Which BTW ex-Member Humphrey Bear had, with a custom LW-Fullshred @ neck. I gotta get him down here with that axe and try it on for size)
The 18 volts (and the 18V mod to EMG) actually only increase headroom and clarity, not output. In a nutshell, the actual advantage of the 18 Volts is that the op-amps in the preamp gobble up lots of the headroom when running on 9V, creating a more compressed, less dynamic more "sterile" tone, and the 18V mod counteracts that by giving the preamp a larger range to work with
The metal live wire is the hottest pickup i ever heard.
It#s ten times hotter than the EMG81.
You can't use it on a clean channel, you would have an already distorted sound.
Neither it is useable as a neck pickup. Thats the reason why a metal live wire set includes a "Live wire classic neck" as a neck pickup.
For my taste this is too clear as a set, i would prefer a classic live wire BRIDGE pickup on the neck position as a combo with a live wire metal.
It just suits better.
With only less distortion on the amp, you can achieve a vintage high gain metal tone.