Re: Whole Lotta Humbucker Vs. Saturday Night Special
A4 is such an underappreciated magnet. I think if a pickup is designed around A4 to take advantage of its distinct qualities, then it will be a great pickup. I keep several A4's around and am always trying them out on guitars. I even put one in a Breed to tame it a bit and the results were subtle, but it did exactly what I hoped for. I made it just a bit more level.
Here's the misconceptions. First of all A4 doesn't have a "flat" EQ as I often see it described. In a way, it's kind of like a less pronounced A2 high end and A5 low end, and the mids somewhere in between. You could say that A5 has a somewhat scooped midrange as I have read it described. I wouldn't necessarily say it's scooped, but it you use the typical description to compare A4, then A4 could be said to be a little more balanced. When I say balanced, it doesn't mean plain or bland. If anything, the bass and treble is slightly tamed, but in all other regards very much like an A5. It has a good output too. If you were to replace an A5 with an A4, you wouldn't notice a drop in output at all.
What I find A4 most useful for is for boomy neck pickups or A2 pickups that need a little bit more of everything. If you have a Custom Custom then swap an A5 to make it a Custom 5, and you don't really like what you hear so much, then you probably should try an A4. I also find A4 useful to drop the output of ceramic pickups. I struggled with my Duncan Distortion for a while then finally swapped an A4 and it was almost the same but a little less of everything... and less irritating.
The Saturday Night Special sounds like the Duncan guys came up with a pretty good sounding PAF and said "nah, we need something different to set it apart," then decided to drop an A4 and call it a day. My experience with the SNS is that it wasn't specifically designed around the A4. The A4 is pretty organic, has a nice output, and can go into a hot wound pickup. I think a vintage wound pickup is harder to get right with A4.
Compare a David Allen P-51 Mustang against a Duncan Saturday Night Special and you'll know exactly what I mean. Then you'll be like, "Ah, now I know what you're talking about." There's another pickup builder I bought from probably 5 years ago and have struggled to remember his name. I remember he was not from America, maybe Great Britain, but his prices were great and he was making a few variations of vintage PAFs. I ordered a set with A4 and they were some of the best pickups I ever bought. I ended up selling the guitar and didn't even give a thought to replacing the pickups, and now I can't remember who it was. There are so many now that I doubt I can find him again.
This all reminds me of Reinhold Bogner and how he designs amps. I read his biography some years ago and remembered one of the things that first fascinated him were vacuum tubes. He designed the Shiva around EL34's and it was great, but I read somewhere it was born out of the mods he used to make to people's Marshalls, so he took a different approach with the 20th anniversary which sounds very different. He chose to design that amp around KT88's. I've owned both versions KT88 & EL34, and can tell you with certainty that KT88's are what were meant to be in there. Then he changed the XTC101B circuit around and designed it with 6L6 in mind, then the 20th XTC was born. I bought one and it was the greatest amp I ever owned. Unfortunately I eventually succumbed to the EL34 hype, sold it and got one with EL34s, but it was not so great as people say. Now I can tell you with great certainty that it's better with 6L6.
I believe, and they can argue till they're blue in the face, that if they say they're better with EL34s then they have some kind of fixation that EL34's are somehow better tubes. Whatever Bogner was doing, he said he did specifically with those tubes in mind. I wouldn't even try to disagree because I've played them all.
Anyway, that's what the SNS reminds me of. I'm not saying it's bad because it's a good pickup. It's just a little disappointing because I think Duncan could have put some more mojo in it.
