UOA5 - A4 comparison

[SJ318]

I did search,
I came close with a post from blueman. Apparently my search skills suck donkey balls.
Many of the forum users, Pepe & blueman most obvious to me, very muchlike UOA5's. Hate to name names, but thought it expedient.
As an A4 guy, and from what I have read in the last year, my take away is that UOA5's seem to be like A4's. I hear they are softer on highs, but how is the midrange? Tight low end? I do understand the idea of dispersing mag waves, have seen the list of mags, but curious how they sound in my type of pups. Low to medium PAF styles.
I tried them all EXCEPT the UOA5 as the regular A5 was too scooped for me. As always, these go into Seth L's bridge & ECPickups Freedom bridge (which came stk A4 mag, but more output).
Anyone up for a prediction of UOA5's vs. 4's in a Seth L?
Just these 2, I don't care for A2, A3, A5, or A8.
I thank you kindly,
SJB

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: UOA5 - A4 comparison

Keep in mind that a UOA5 IS an A5 mag with the same basic characteristics. But the rough cast and unoriented nature tend to make the highs a little less harsh, warms up the mids, and even softens the lows making it a little less punchy. I stress the term "little". No dramatics here.

I too like UOA5 mags, but there are times when I want that little extra snap/punch of a polished A5 (in some P-90s for example). There are also times when I need to all-together get away from the character of an A5, and the UOA5 is not going to do that.

There is much more of a difference between an A4 and a UOA5 than there is between an A5 and a UOA5.

Hope that helps, Steve.

 

[blueman335]

Re: UOA5 - A4 comparison

UOA5's are closest to an A2 in sound. To me, they're like an A2 with a little more treble and a little less mids. They have more texture and character than an A4.

 

[freefrog]

Re: UOA5 - A4 comparison

Hi Steve,

I post below for you a comparative screenshot. It shows the overall frequency response of a same set of HB's, played on the same track, with the two kinds of mags that you mention.

FWIW.



NOTES
-the pickups involved were symetrically wound boutique PAF clones, underwound and hand guided, plugged direct to the board through a 1M input. the track played was strictly the same. The vast difference of EQing is therefore exclusively due to the magnets!
-for this test, the PU's were mounted in a Semi hollow guitar (ES335 copy);
-I've here several extensive tests showing separately the frequency response of single notes and chords through neck PU, neck + bridge and bridge PU, with A2, A3, A4, long or short A5 and UOA5 mags. I've way too much work and not enough free time to post all this stuff right now... Thx for your understanding;
-I've tried all these mags in several machine wound vs hand guided HB's and the results were sometimes noticeably different according to the coils and metal parts composing the pickup. So, my screenshots are to take with a grain of salt;
-What my pictures won't show anyway is the dynamics + harmonics due to UOA5: in my test mentioned here, UOA5 made the attack a tad softer/slower (less crispy dry) and the decay harmonically way richer than A4... In this case, UOA5 was just my favourite solution, by a long shot.

OTHER NOTE
-I've some old "Seymourized" SH1's here (prehistoric Duncan's made in the late 70's) and their vintage rough cast A5 long mags don't make them sound scooped at all: they have thick meaty mids and sound darker than any of my other PAF clones. I CAN obtain a crisp scooped tone from fully charged short A5 contemporary mags but it's really different with the old ones...

Hope to be useful.

See ya!

EDIT for a bonus (?): still the same guitar, pu's and track with A2 and A3...

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: UOA5 - A4 comparison

I have not used one before but I have one at home waiting to go in a JB.

Cool graphs freefrog!

 

[AlexR]

Re: UOA5 - A4 comparison

I have a couple of pickup sets (both PAF clones) with an UOA5 bridge/A4 neck combo. The bridge certainly has a bit more restraint you might say - the highs not coming through when you pick hard like with the neck A4 loaded pickup. But they are similar enough to make the pickup location compensate for this.

 

[SJ318]

Re: UOA5 - A4 comparison

freefrog, GuitarDoc, blueman335 -
Very well done. Thank you. Interesting that looking at both graphs, a layman like myself views them as similar, but the differences in sound are much more prominent to the ear than the eye. I can see the area in the A4 example that makes me prefer it in my case.
blueman335 along with the others, thanks to all of you for your descriptions of how they all differ, tonally, very succinct and direct. This should go in the "Vault". *freefrog*, thanks for for the very long extra mile you went. Good luck to treyhaislip on the JB UOA5.
I thought the A2 and A3 sounded pretty similar and the chart (graph) seems to back that up from what I can tell. So with all this knowledge crammed into your 5 responses goes on my desktop main Mac 0S X. Right next to that list of mags and their traits that I hope to find. I believe it was blueman335, but can't really remember. It resurfaces often, I had it bookmarked, but lost it when I got this new 2015 Mac.
Regardless of my search skills and how they relate to farm animals, I gotta hunt that down, put 'em together, all in one folder.
Sincere thanks, as always, that did help,
Steve

 

[SJ318]

Re: UOA5 - A4 comparison

LazNovak has a link on page 1 (as of today) under "A8 Magnets" started by tman, I think is the thread.
It's a SDuncan link, haven't read it yet, but thought I should mention it quick. Hope I spelled his name correctly.
SJ