Slotted poles vs hex poles

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Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

1. Remove the filister poles.
2. Install hex/Allen pole. (Or vice versa).
3. Plug in and play.
4. Use the ears. <- important part
5. Difference is obvious.

That's pretty much a clinical experiment, especially if the before and after is recorded using the same musical passages and amp settings which is my intention. I take this approach with magnet swaps, pickup swaps etc.
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Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

If the materials are the same, the slotted head screw has more metal near the string, it's pretty much a sold pole with just a slot in it, the hex head is more like a tube, the hex hollows out the pole near the string. I can see how it could make a difference, but I'm not going to try to predict exactly how or try to draw the magnetic field or anything.

In my pickups there's another factor, the fillister polse are only 3mm diameter whereas my hex poles are 5mm diameter, fillisters are 21mm my hex poles are 12 mm long - I expect a perceptible difference - but I will find out soon.


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Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

If you looking only at the head of the screw and thinking you're hearing the difference that must make, you're probably be overlooking differences in the steel properties of the two screws. The pole piece is also very significant in how it effects inductance and high end attenuation due to eddy currents. If the volume of steel in the screw is more substantial, that's going to make a far bigger difference than the shape of the screw head. Unless you have controlled for all these other variables, you have not truly "heard" the difference between flat head and hex screw heads.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Then you'll accept it when I tell you that I HAVE controlled all of those other variables, and have heard the difference between differently shaped poles and how they alter the flux patterns? We do this every couple weeks or less with you; go around and around about what presents a perceivable difference, what doesn't...Forum members tell you that they have heard differences between A and B, and you tell us that the laws of physics make it impossible for someone to hear differences.

It's not that I'm disagreeing with every part of your premise. I have said before that when someone swaps hex poles from a Screamin Demon or Full Shred with slot head poles from a PAF type, the biggest difference they're hearing is the difference in the length of the pole piece affecting things like the return path and therefore the shape of the field above the coil. But you made a blanket statement "the shape of the screw head isn't going to make any difference" and, well I'm sorry but that's false. Maybe its not a difference you care about or can hear yourself, through your rig. But you know what? We almost always end up here with you: Did you, personally, ever take otherwise "same" pole pieces, 6 with a slot head, and 6 with hex heads, and swap the two back and forth in an attempt to validate your hypothesis that it would make no difference? Did you ever do that? It's okay to answer "No I didn't". We're not going to judge you. The readers will just have a more clear understanding of what it means when you use definitive statements like that as though you're coming from a position of authority on the matter.

Incidentally this also applies to Strat pickups with bevelled magnet poles, or flat poles. The bevels alter the field. Also remember in a pole piece pickup, each pole is the same polarity. That means at the top, they wish to repel one another, not combine. So when analyzing pole piece head shapes, you can't just look at the flux that would come off of an individual pole. You have to look at how those changes are affecting the pole-to-pole relationship.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Maybe you did test this out and controlled the variables, but I don't have your ears, so it doesn't do me any good. Maybe if you had recorded audio samples.. or something. It's very tricky business hearing such tiny difference. It might not have had anything to do with the pole piece, maybe you just held the pick in your hand a little bit different, and maybe the was the reason. If you can provide some physics related reason why it should sound different, that would at least give a plausible reason to believe the difference was the pole pieces, and not you holding your guitar pick a little differently, or one of any other numerous complicating factors.

We're dealing to assumptions stacked upon other assumptions, here. Even if you establish that the shape of the screw head changes the flux density or flux pattern at the strings, you (or whoever) still haven't established how this change in magnetism would, or should, change the sound produced by the pickup.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Maybe you did test this out and controlled the variables, but I don't have your ears, so it doesn't do me any good. Maybe if you had recorded audio samples.. or something. It's very tricky business hearing such tiny difference. It might not have had anything to do with the pole piece, maybe you just held the pick in your hand a little bit different, and maybe the was the reason. If you can provide some physics related reason why it should sound different, that would at least give a plausible reason to believe the difference was the pole pieces, and not you holding your guitar pick a little differently, or one of any other numerous complicating factors.

We're dealing to assumptions stacked upon other assumptions, here. Even if you establish that the shape of the screw head changes the flux density or flux pattern at the strings, you (or whoever) still haven't established how this change in magnetism would, or should, change the sound produced by the pickup.

I think you answered your own question. If the slightest change in how you hold a pick can make a difference then of course the larger changing the shape of the object that is a key component in the pickup would make a difference. I don't understand the science and other stuff but I do understand semantics.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

I'll explain why I say it makes no difference. Maybe there is some difference to be heard from a difference in absolute flux density in a given area of string, and in fact if the flux is too great, you get intermodulations due to magnetic string pull, but with differences in screw head shape, the flux density doesn't change too much, and comes nowhere close to causing intermodulations in the strings. The other known area to look for differences is due to comb filtering. The wider the magnetic field, the more high end you lose to comb filtering, and the frequencies that are effected are directly related to the width of the magnetic field. The tiny widths we're dealing with by messing with screw head shapes would only effect the comb filtering at very, very high frequencies. The fact that there are nearby return paths from other pole pieces only serves to reduce the flux density at the string slightly. There is no reason to believe that there are any time dependent effects as a result of neighboring flux fields.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

I think you answered your own question. If the slightest change in how you hold a pick can make a difference then of course the larger changing the shape of the object that is a key component in the pickup would make a difference. I don't understand the science and other stuff but I do understand semantics.

"key component" and "make a difference" are gross oversimplifications. In what respects is it key component? What difference(s) does the component make?
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

But you know what? We almost always end up here with you: Did you, personally, ever take otherwise "same" pole pieces, 6 with a slot head, and 6 with hex heads, and swap the two back and forth in an attempt to validate your hypothesis that it would make no difference? Did you ever do that? It's okay to answer "No I didn't". We're not going to judge you. The readers will just have a more clear understanding of what it means when you use definitive statements like that as though you're coming from a position of authority on the matter.


This. Ad nauseam.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

I only wanted to know what anyone's experience was of the difference in sound as it's not sinthing I have tried and potentially changes the format of my pickup if I get good results !

Lol!

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Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

"key component" and "make a difference" are gross oversimplifications. In what respects is it key component? What difference(s) does the component make?
Wow! So the pole piece isn't key component? Lets see your pickup without pole pieces and some sound samples. If make a difference is a gross oversimplification at this level then almost everything you post falls into that hole on meaningless.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Maybe you did test this out and controlled the variables, but I don't have your ears, so it doesn't do me any good. Maybe if you had recorded audio samples..
Right, well I didn't do it for your benefit, I did it for the benefit of a company who invests in R&D so that they can make the best products possible. A respectable endeavor, of which I'm proud to have played a part.

Let me button this part of the discussion up for everyone: We have to assume that no, Thanaton hasn't ever played 6 slot head poles in a pickup, and then played the same thing with a hex topped version.

It might not have had anything to do with the pole piece, maybe you just held the pick in your hand a little bit different, and maybe the was the reason. If you can provide some physics related reason why it should sound different, that would at least give a plausible reason to believe the difference was the pole pieces, and not you holding your guitar pick a little differently, or one of any other numerous complicating factors.
I still chuckle at the notion that you might not even realize why this is so insulting and condescending. No, Thanaton, I don't think I was holding the pick in such a way that produced a false delta. If you'd like to think that, well bless your heart.

We're dealing to assumptions stacked upon other assumptions, here.
No, you are. I've done my homework. The only assumption I've made is the one about you never having conducted a controlled experiment regarding pole piece geometry.
 
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Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Right, well I didn't do it for your benefit, I did it for the benefit of a company who invests in R&D so that they can make the best products possible. A respectable endeavor, of which I'm proud to have played a part.

Let me button this part of the discussion up for everyone: We have to assume that no, Thanaton hasn't ever played 6 slot head poles in a pickup, and then played the same thing with a hex topped version.

I still chuckle at the notion that you might not even realize why this is so insulting and condescending. No, Thanaton, I don't think I was holding the pick in such a way that produced a false delta. If you'd like to think that, well bless your heart.

No, you are. I've done my homework. The only assumption I've made is the one about you never having conducted a controlled experiment regarding pole piece geometry.

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Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Frank, would mixing styles (like, say, hex poles on the wound strings and slotted on the three plain strings) work to tighten the lows on the lower strings and reduce the shrill on the higher strings?
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Yeah but as we've been saying, that's more attributed to the difference in length. So you can accomplish a similar thing with 6 long (PAF length) slot head poles by cutting the 3 wound string poles closer and/or flush to the baseplate. Inductance shifts from the alloys being different from one another won't really be isolated to the area surrounding those specific pole pieces. That will be global.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

falbo is blazing on this thread, i can totally asure that only thing thanaton knows about magnet physics is from reading the very first paragraph from wikipedia, otherwise he would know how the shape and nearing objects to a permanent ferromagnet affect magnetic flux field

i wonder if thanaton can write this on here where the f influencer can answer him what would he think/write after reading bill lawrence's pickupology articles (which by the way are kinda really short dummies might understand intentionally simplified versions of the real thing teorem, yet that doesn't make them any less useful)
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

Right, well I didn't do it for your benefit, I did it for the benefit of a company who invests in R&D so that they can make the best products possible. A respectable endeavor, of which I'm proud to have played a part.

Let me button this part of the discussion up for everyone: We have to assume that no, Thanaton hasn't ever played 6 slot head poles in a pickup, and then played the same thing with a hex topped version.

I still chuckle at the notion that you might not even realize why this is so insulting and condescending. No, Thanaton, I don't think I was holding the pick in such a way that produced a false delta. If you'd like to think that, well bless your heart.

No, you are. I've done my homework. The only assumption I've made is the one about you never having conducted a controlled experiment regarding pole piece geometry.

You either provide details on the tests you perform, methods and findings, so that they may be reviewed by your peers (or whoever)... or you don't. To date, you haven't.

Maybe you did use a guitar pick, how am I supposed to know? You're the one who has withheld such details. Do you expect me to just take your word for it? You should not fault someone for maintaining a healthy skepticism.
 
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Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

i would be my aff off that thanaton would try to prove wrong a quantum mechanics physicist and try to discuss with him after reading about quantum mechanics for a couple minutes on internet.
 
Re: Slotted poles vs hex poles

You should not fault someone for maintaining a healthy skepticism.
Nothing about you and your insulting and condescending rhetoric is healthy.

It's exactly the opposite of healthy!

I still wonder why the mods still allow you to post in this forum, as your only contribution to it is to undermine other people's REAL work and knowledge in any way possible.

Anyway, I find it not only ironic, but downright disrectful the way that you b*tch and moan DEMANDING to have granted access to information that's protected either from NDAs or Intellectual Property agreements, but you have NEVER, EVER published anything at all made by your own research. I know also the reason why: you have never done anything, not for you, not for anybody else.

Does the basement where your mother let you live have mold? Did you take your meds today? Some of us care, you know? I mean, not only your imaginary friends, mind you. ;)
 
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