Tom Anderson H1 & H2 v. Duncan ?

[SavageRiffer]

Anyone have a Tom Anderson H1 or H2? I have developed a preference for pickups with wide pole pieces. I like them better than rails, screws, and even the PATB type stuff. I wonder if the SD custom shop has that as an option. Anyway, I think the H1 & H2 I have are excellent pickups. There is nothing I can come up with to complain about them. The balance, the output, everything is extremely good. At the same time, it's almost like they're missing some character... maybe even sterile in a way. It's not that they don't have warmth or that they sound bland or anything of that sort. I can't really identify what it is, but I'm thinking about getting some SD custom shop pickups to replace them.

 

[auratnik]

Re: Tom Anderson H1 & H2 v. Duncan ?

Well, I use H2+ and H3 for years and I just love them, sure I tried others but I still come back to these. Tom Anderson makes killer pickups!

 

[SavageRiffer]

Re: Tom Anderson H1 & H2 v. Duncan ?

Well, I use H2+ and H3 for years and I just love them, sure I tried others but I still come back to these. Tom Anderson makes killer pickups!

They give off lots of harmonics and handle distortion well. I really like them. Maybe I'll just keep them.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Tom Anderson H1 & H2 v. Duncan ?

I have an H2 and I like it. I agree that it does have a certain hi-fi quality: doesn't impose a lot of its own personality on the tone, so I could see how it might seem to lack character. Yet it lets the guitar's own natural sound come through. I think the H2+ and the H3 probably have more prominent mids, which might account for their greater popularity. But the H2 is just the right strength for me- I don't like to have to redial my settings when I switch guitars. And it splits really, really well.

I've had a couple of other humbuckers that were like this, such as the stock A4 PRS McCarty pickups. Have sometimes been tempted to swap mags in those. But they're not really bland, just neutral. We get so used to humbuckers with a strong flavor to them that the ones that are less colored can seem lackluster sometimes.