The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

[jerryjg]

Since we are all mass debaters around here, Ive decided its time to open the grandadaddy of all debates.;

In this corner weighing in at 4 oz., and commanding $129.00- The Gibson 57 Classic;
Faithful replica of the Gibson humbucker that helped define the music of the late 1950s.

The Gibson '57 Classic Humbucker Pickup features Gibson's special Alnico II magnet; vintage enamel-coated wire; nickel-plated pole pieces; nickel slugs; maple spacers; and vintage-style, 2-conductor, braided wiring.

Gibson '57 Classic Humbucker Pickup Features:
Special Alnico II magnet
Vintage enamel-coated wire
nickel-plated pole pieces
Nickel slugs
Maple spacers
Vintage-style, two-conductor braided wiring..

In the Double Cream , weighing in at also 4 oz, and $104.00, The Seymour Duncan Seth Lover .;

Designed jointly by Seymour and humbucker inventor, the late Seth Lover. Just like the original 1955 P.A.F.s, the SH-55 utilizes a nickel silver cover and long-legged nickel silver bottom plate, butyrate plastic bobbins, plain enamel wire, Alnico 2 bar, wooden spacer, and black paper tape. To be completely true to the original design and tone, the pickup is not wax potted. The tone is vintage P.A.F. The unpotted cover gives a slightly "honky" microphonic quality. Vintage style single conductor cable standard.

Lets have a clean fight. No hitting below the belt.

 

[JB6464]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

There both vintage style copies of the original PAF's but neither are right. They both have even wound coils with A2's. The original PAF's had uneven coils and sound more open and alive. Also the originals were never wound the same and the 57's and Seth's are machine wound production models. The 57's are wax potted and the Seth's are not. Unpotted pickups i think are closer to the originals.Both are great for modern vintage tones but not close enough for the real PAF tones.

 

[jerryjg]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

There both vintage style copies of the original PAF's but neither are right. They both have even wound coils with A2's. The original PAF's had uneven coils and sound more open and alive. Also the originals were never wound the same and the 57's and Seth's are machine wound production models. The 57's are wax potted and the Seth's are not. Unpotted pickups i think are closer to the originals.Both are great for modern vintage tones but not close enough for the real PAF tones.

wow. Great reply. Of course they arent $2000.00 (?)like a real 50's PAF . Did Seymour Duncan hand wind any of the old first production Duncans? Ive got an Anciant JB, and am =wondering ..it looks archaic and almost handbuilt. Bet it would beat my New JB..maybe just due to aqeing.

 

[blueman335]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I'd get a '57 Classic in a heartbeat. Very rich tones & darn few complaints.

 

[Thunder]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

Seth's much sweeter, especially in 335 types.

 

[Lucid_Lunatic]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I regret selling my 03 set of 57's from my LP..............

 

[frankentone]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

the gibson 57 classic was designed by tom homes

 

[JB6464]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

Now if Gibson would offer a Unpotted classic 57,i think they would sound better than the burstbuckers in some guitars. Sometimes its hard to tell the difference on cd's but unpotted pickups in the right guitar just destroys potted ones in tones when you play them live. I opted for unpotted gold covered 59's in my Gibson Historic 57 LPC.

 

[JB6464]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

jerryig, from what i was told when i called S.D. a while back is that they did hanydwind the very early ones when they started out. Also i think they told me some of the earlier model JB's had A2 mags in them as well.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I think the Classic 57 is a so, so pickup at best...they are overly bright in a not very musical way to my ears plus there is this grainy character to them that can't be dialed out...A Burstbucker 1, 2, or 3 is a FAR better pickup IMO than a Classic 57 but the Seth smokes the Burstbuckers by an even larger margin and wghiule we're at it I think that the Pearly Gates or Antiquities are even better sounding than Seths...

 

[JB6464]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

But the Ant's are evenly wound coils as well. There just aged to sound old but they dont have the open sound like the burstbuckers with uneven coils have. If you think the 57's are bright,the burstbuckers are brighter because of the way their wound. They made my all mohogany 57 LPC sound brighter than my alder strats with 59's in them. I pulled them and wont look back.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I think the Classic 57 is a so, so pickup at best...they are overly bright in a not very musical way to my ears plus there is this grainy character to them that can't be dialed out...

I've got a set in my ES-135. It's an awesome guitar and sounds great, but those pickups are like you described. I don't find them overly bright, but I do find them to be grainy, non musical, and somewhat compressed sounding.

 

[blueman335]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I've got a set in my ES-135. It's an awesome guitar and sounds great, but those pickups are like you described. I don't find them overly bright, but I do find them to be grainy, non musical, and somewhat compressed sounding.

I find my '57 very smooth (It's a in a 335 bridge with an A4). Now 498T's, that's grainy.

 

[ErikH]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I'll take '57 Classics over the Seths. I've got a set in one of my Strats (Plus in the bridge). They sound incredible in that guitar. There's nothing grainy about them to me ears with my rig. They are a little brighter than typical A2 pickups but that's because they have a good mix of A2 and A5 qualities. I'm also running both of them uncovered.

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

Here's a REALLY good interview of Seth Lover, conducted by none other than Seymour D. himself in 1978.

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/pickups/2468-1978-seth-e-lover-interview.html

Some interseting points he goes over are that none of the production PAF pickups were wound by hand. They'd do one-offs and repairs by hand, but not the production runs, so some of them were but not the bulk of them. It's not to say that they were identical, but close anyway.

Maybe it's the few that were wound by hand that gave the rest the mystique:scratchch

The other is that the neck pickup on Gibsons was a bridge model so they wouldn't have to make two toolings.

SWD= Seymour Duncan

SWD: After the first bobbins you had made, were there any tooling problems or anything you had to change in the design after you had the bobbins made?
Seth Lover: No. I don’t recall. There was some debate at one time whether we could make more than one spacing. The spacing-spacing of the strings near the finger boards are different than the bridge. I wanted to make one for each, well that meant making two molds. So I think we settled on one and let it fall where it would on the forward or fingerboard pickup.

SWD: Where the coils wound by hand or was the magnet wire guided by machine?
Seth Lover: Only the experimental ones were wound by hand. Once we decided to make a bobbin and got our coil forms molded, then we set it up on the machine and I’m trying to think just how many; there was one machine that wound just four coils. I know there was one little machine and then we had a larger machine where we would wind more.

SWD: Was the wire guided on by hand or did it have an automatic traverse.
Seth Lover: It had an automatic traverse. (the machine automatically layers the magnet wire on the bobbin)

SWD: I read an article that someone said earlier humbuckers sounded the way they do because they were wound by hand and the newer ones were different because they were wound by machine.
Seth Lover: I can’t recall that anybody wound any by hand except people who were repairing. I wound sometimes, and if an old pickup was sent back in and they didn’t have a machine for winding it then it would be rewound by hand.

 

[skynyrdlover1]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I had a set of seths in a epi les paul limited edition,rewired with orange drop caps cts pots switchcraft jack toggle switch that was very good and I just bougt a gibson les paul traditional with 57' classic and classic+.The Traditional is alot better built ...frets wood neck.I would have to pick the 57' classics by a slim margin.

 

[bryvincent]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

There both vintage style copies of the original PAF's but neither are right. They both have even wound coils with A2's. The original PAF's had uneven coils and sound more open and alive. Also the originals were never wound the same and the 57's and Seth's are machine wound production models. The 57's are wax potted and the Seth's are not. Unpotted pickups i think are closer to the originals.Both are great for modern vintage tones but not close enough for the real PAF tones.

the Original 50s PAFs were also machine wound production models.
and Seths are actually wound on the same machine(Leesona Winder) that wound PAFs in the 50s.

But the Ant's are evenly wound coils as well.

All the Ants i own have uneven coils.

 

[JB6464]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

Not what S.D. told me on the phone. They are even wound. You can hear it in the pu because their very even flat response pu'. Yes the originals were done on a machine too but they all had different output ratings meaning the person running the machine stop them when they thought they were full bobbins. Seymour builds his Ant's pretty close to the same output everytime. So they pretty much all sound the same . The originals would read all over the place.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

But the Ant's are evenly wound coils as well. There just aged to sound old but they dont have the open sound like the burstbuckers with uneven coils have. If you think the 57's are bright,the burstbuckers are brighter because of the way their wound. They made my all mohogany 57 LPC sound brighter than my alder strats with 59's in them. I pulled them and wont look back.

How do you know that thd Ants are even??? I sure can't tell by just listening to them and since they are single conductor you can't measure it...

Also, FWIW, I found my 57 Classics (all 5 of the one I have had) to be brighter then even my BB1

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: The Great debate 57 Classic Vs. Seth Lover

I've got a set in my ES-135. It's an awesome guitar and sounds great, but those pickups are like you described. I don't find them overly bright, but I do find them to be grainy, non musical, and somewhat compressed sounding.

Maybe that just works for that guitar...if it osund great then roll with it!