Tonerider A5 birmingham vs SD 59?

[gimmieinfo]

Maybe someone here is familiar with both/ The situation is this. I'm old school, use a treble bleed equipped LP standard with 500k pots and roll down my volume for clean and in between gain levels. The stock A2 pickups didn't clean up well at all and i knew a set of A5 with a similar wind would sound more open and clean up better. I was right. However, better was not enough for me. I want an even cleaner more open tone. I tried the toneriders becase 1-they are less than 1/2 the cost of the 59's and i have read a lot more negative reviews of the 59's. But now i'm wondering if i would have done better getting the 59s The tonriders are 8.7k B and 7.6k N while the 59's are 8.2k B and 7.6k N. Same neck but the bridge is 500 ohms less then the tonerider B. Do you think the openness and crispness would be much better with the 59 B? The necks being the same i assume will sound very close unless someone whos had both can speak to that. I'm just trying to decide if it would be worth it to get a 59 set or maybe just the bridge or if i should just stay with the toneriders. They're actually good on 10, but as i roll down to clean up they are just acceptable, and NO treble bleed option/value or 50s wiring matters. I've done everything you can think of so please lets not go there and just stick with the question of TR vs 59 given what i've described as my needs and issue.

 

[Juanhanglo]

It matters less when you consider the following have as much or more influence :

Magnet strength
Coil offset
scatterwound vs standard
type of wire
Pole piece length, material, and head type.:joke:

Does it make a difference? Sure. But, can you really attribute the change to only the resistance?

But as everyone says, the only way to really know is to try them out for yourself.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

"They're actually good on 10, but as i roll down to clean up they are just acceptable, and NO treble bleed option/value or 50s wiring matters."

You answered your own question. If its unacceptable, then you got to try something different. In my experience, TRs don't have good clarity. I would expect any comparative SD to have more "shine" and clarity.

Don't dismiss the Pearly Gates despite being A2. They are usually bright and clear in most applications.

The DiMarzio 36ths also have excellent clarity and clean up well.

 

[marcello252]

. In my experience, TRs don't have good clarity. I would expect any comparative SD to have more "shine" and clarit.

mmh, I have at the moment a TR A4 HB set and a A2 bridge HB and they are pretty clear compared to my APH-1s, at least equal, even a bit more rich I dare to say (I don't have any other vintage output SDs now)

 

[freefrog]

There's one most important factor to make pickups clean up nicely when lowering pots : a low parasitic capacitance of the coils.

Capacitance is due to pressure between close wires + layers of capacitive materials between them. Reason why scatterwound and unpotted coils exhibit a low capacitance more easily.
Bt it's not systematically the case: I've some machine wound and potted pickups with a low parasitic capacitance too. The Duncan Jazz SH2 comes to my mind as an example of this: I've tested a contemporary one some weeks ago and it "had it".

I can't comment the possible choice of 59's: those that I've tested these last decades had all slightly different measured specs, depending on their age... and I don't know if recent sets are low capacitance or not.

But I'll stand on my statement: if someone wants the sound to clean up while lowering the volume / tone controls, low capacitance coils are the answer IME.

 

[ToneFiddler]

Bt it's not systematically the case: I've some machine wound and potted pickups with a low parasitic capacitance too. The Duncan Jazz SH2 comes to my mind as an example of this: I've tested a contemporary one some weeks ago and it "had it".

It's not clear to me. The contemporary Jazz has the low parasitic capacitance?

 

[freefrog]

Yes, one recent SH2 tested here recently exhibited a very low stray capacitance. Hence an induced resonant frequency very high pitched relatively to the inductance of the pickup.

The Q factor of the mentioned SH2 was also higher than with many mass-marketed humbuckers: it's another parameter helping to obtain a nice transparent tone from neck pickups IME...

That said: in my own experience (again), SH2's, like SH1's, may vary in measured specs according to their age and precise origins. I've measured an inductive difference of 0.5H between SH2's having a same DCR but from different decades, for example.

 

[ToneFiddler]

Yes, one recent SH2 tested here recently exhibited a very low stray capacitance. Hence an induced resonant frequency very high pitched relatively to the inductance of the pickup.

The Q factor of the mentioned SH2 was also higher than with many mass-marketed humbuckers: it's another parameter helping to obtain a nice transparent tone from neck pickups IME...

That said: in my own experience (again), SH2's, like SH1's, may vary in measured specs according to their age and precise origins. I've measured an inductive difference of 0.5H between SH2's having a same DCR but from different decades, for example.

Thanks for clearing that up.