Something about the JB...

Yeah, and the Thrash Factor to

There was a great shoot-out done by one of our forum bros, @zenmindbeginner, comparing the standard JB, the 35th, and the Antiquity:


Biggest difference is the magnet and charge. Standard JB = Fully charged polished A5, 35th = Fully charged roughcast A5, Antiquity = Degaussed (aka: "aged") roughcast A5

Thrash factor is a little tighter and more direct sounding than the standard JB.

Concept set is a slightly tweaked JB with an A2 magnet and pretty much a regular Jazz neck with Custom Shop treatment. These are recreations of the prototypes that were originally featured in the "TeleGib" guitar.

So, from "vintage" to "modern" versions of the JB, you have:

Concept > Antiquity > 35th > Standard > Thrash Factor > SH-6 Distortion...oops, how'd that get in there? ;)
 
I've only had the Antiquity JB and the standard JB. And yeah, the Distortion. And the Black Winter if you want to count those.

The Antiquity is hands down the best JB I've had. Not gonna say it was in a completely different league, but it definitely has something special going on. The high and the low end are rolled off, and it has a certain "refinement" to the attack. Feels "squishier" and a bit softer, but not in a bad way. Not in an A2 kinda way. Even if the low-end is less extended, the pickup overall feels a bit fuller because it has a bit less emphasis up top. A thing that I found interesting is, even if the magnet is degaussed, the output of the pickup doesn't take a huge hit. I didn't find the output to be all that different from the production JB.

Outside of Seymour Duncan, other JB-inspired pickups I've had are the DiMarzio AT-1, the Suhr SSH+ and Aldrich, the Fishman Fluence Classic. And I'm going to include the DiMarzio Dominion in that list as well, because even if it's not all that directly JB-inspired, it definitely has a JB vibe to my ears, and the specs don't seem as off as well.

Take this comparison I made as a grain of salt. These pickups are not in the same guitar, and one of them is running on a 1M pot, even. But it may get you a rough idea of how close (or different) they are.

 
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Do you like the JB with 500k or 250k? I do think it sounds better to me with 250k.
Depends on the JB and the guitar. I'm liking 500K, no tone right now, but I'm tempted to go 250.

I definitely don't like running it through two 250K pots, though. I tune down, and I feel the emphasis of the pickup shifts to the stuffy lower mids that are the one thing that I sometimes struggle with on the JB.
 
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I've always felt the right pots for the JB are 250K, that way the famous spike in the mid high is tamed.
I've always thought that most of the criticism about the JB eq comes from users with higher value pots, where the resonance peak is much more present, but I don't have real evidences about my personal experience apart
 
I've only had the Antiquity JB and the standard JB. And yeah, the Distortion. And the Black Winter if you want to count those.

The Antiquity is hands down the best JB I've had. Not gonna say it was in a completely different league, but it definitely has something special going on. The high and the low end are rolled off, and it has a certain "refinement" to the attack. Feels "squishier" but and a bit softer, but not in a bad way. Not in an A2 kinda way. Even if the low-end is less extended, the pickup overall feels a bit fuller because it has a bit less emphasis up top. A thing that I found interesting is, even if the magnet is degaussed, the output of the pickup doesn't take a huge hit. I didn't find the output to be all that different from the production JB.
I must try the JB with the roughcast A5
 
Eddie used a 250k pot with his broken JB in the 5150, right? I don't remember the exact details from that Larry DiMarzio article.

I have tried the JB a few times in the past, mostly in passing, I may have to revisit sometime since it's been an age. I briefly had a Jackson DK2M which came stock with the 'hot rodded' set, like many Jacksons still do and I didn't jive with it. I do prefer lower output hbs for a daily driver but hotter stuff is fun to have (got an SH6 in a guitar that's cool).
 
Right there with you, I definitely favor the JB and it's various "offspring" lol. Though I haven't tried them all I love the AT-1 for sure, but 100% agree, there is something special about the OG, it ain't the best selling humbucker for nothing!
 
As long as we're talking about "variants", I think an honorable mention should go out to the DD HB-102 set. (JB / Jazz set.) Seymours favorite set. They sound killer in a Tele-Gib.
 
currently its a sns, but it was a wlh. i think i like the wlh better, but the sns is really nice. 500k volume on the neck pup. i might mag swap the neck and see what i can get out of it. neck volume, bridge volume, master tone (p/p to split both) huge neck (1" thick nut to heal) and super light weight body but no neck dive
So it's a 250K volume and tone for the bridge?

I'm considering a single 250K volume for my Les Paul, but I don't find long shaft 250K pots on Amazon. Might have to order it elsewhere. I'm loving the tone I'm getting right now, but I do have a subtle pre-EQ before my amp sim knocking off a little high-end. Might be able to do without it if I change the pot to something lower value. But I'm gonna have to experiment since I also don't want to shift the emphasis from the high mids to the cores mids too much.

I do wish those Gibson 300K pots were more readily available.
 
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500k volume for neck, 250 volume for bridge, master 500k tone thats p/p to split both pups. i only go into old style tube amps, so not sure how it sounds into a sim.
 
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