So... what's special about Suhr's Alnico 5 magnets?

[Rex_Rocker]

I keep reading on his site his pickups use this special kind of Alnico 5 for magnets that no one else is using. Do you guys know what's up with that?

He explains a bit in this vid:

So what is it? Is it unoriented Alnico 5? Is it something else? Can anyone with experience with his pups describe how it sounds?

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: So... what's special about Suhr's Alnico 5 magnets?

I've installed a couple of sets of Aldrich humbuckers. They sounded good for overwound pickups.

I did not take any gauss measurements.

The thing is there are lots of formulations of Alnico. If you buy Alnico 5 magnets from three different manufacturers they will all be a little different. So maybe he found a particular magnet he likes and specifies how to have it made.


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[daenius]

Re: So... what's special about Suhr's Alnico 5 magnets?

I have 2 Suhr guitars so I've tried most of their pickups: SSH+, SSV, SSV+, DSV+, Aldrich, V54, ML Standard.
I really like how they all sound. They have quite a unique sparkly treble response that you don't typically expect from humbuckers, and the high output Aldrich is surprisingly open sounding for given its output levels.

Honestly because every brand has different winding specs it's really hard to just isolate the magnets and compare them. Nothing short of taking apart a Suhr pickup and a Duncan pickup and taking a gauss meter to both Alnico 5s...

DavidRavenMoon is right here though, Alnico is an alloy so the composition can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Re: So... what's special about Suhr's Alnico 5 magnets?

Interesting. Thanks for the replies dudes.