Dimarzio Virtual Hot PAF (DP214) Measurements

[nienturi]

Hi,

This is first ever topic on this forum. Well, since i don't have right kind of equipment so can't supply a bode plot but as far as i can get, i'll share my measurements. I've read and learn much from this forum and want to contribute what i like.
First of all i'll share my favourite Dimarzio, Virtual Hot PAF. 

Dimarzio Virtual Hot PAF (DP214)

Magnet – Alnico 5

Advertised DCR: 9,13 K Ohm (Series)

Measured DCR: 9,59 K Ohm (Series)

Measured DCR: 4,81 K Ohm (Slug Coil)

Measured DCR: 4,80 K Ohm (Screw Coil)

Inductance @100hz: 5,47H (Series)

Inductance @100hz: 2,360H (Slug Coil)

Output: 265 Milivolts (advertised)

Wire Gauge: 43 AWG

Patents: Airbucker & Virtual Vintage
Gauss: Screw 260G, Slug 250G (arithmetic mean of the values measured from the D and G strings)

www.tonejourney.com/post/dimarzio-virtual-hot-paf-dp214-review

[stratotarts]

Welcome, and thanks for the contribution. To fully utilize your measurement information, people will want to know the details of your measurement system. That is because different equipment configurations may yield different results. It's not strictly necessary to have bode plots, but helpful.

[antigua]

Thanks a lot of the info. Without knowing what your test device is, I see you measure the inductance at 100Hz, which is good, and I'm guessing you have a DE-5000 most likely. 

One thing that's sort of interesting to look at with a DiMarzio, is to unscrew the base plate, and see if they put slugs in the coil and/or used rubber washers in place of a metal keeper bar. I'm guessing that particular model has both of those features, like the PAF Master guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7765/dimarzio-paf-master-analysis-review . For some reason DiMarzio trademarked the term PAF, and then it seems did everything they could think of to avoid making an authentic PAF replica, until very recently. 

With an inductance of 5.5H I'd say it's an average PAF, neither over or underwound. 

A bode plot would probably show a typical PAF type pattern, a low Q factor, with just a slight bump at the resonance. 

[nienturi]

Feb 23, 2024 11:29:30 GMT -5 stratotarts said:

Welcome, and thanks for the contribution. To fully utilize your measurement information, people will want to know the details of your measurement system. That is because different equipment configurations may yield different results. It's not strictly necessary to have bode plots, but helpful.

Now i'm at office, monday i'll look at and write here but all i can say they are nothing facy gadgets most of technical guys won't impressed

[nienturi]

Feb 23, 2024 13:47:32 GMT -5 antigua said:

Thanks a lot of the info. Without knowing what your test device is, I see you measure the inductance at 100Hz, which is good, and I'm guessing you have a DE-5000 most likely. 

One thing that's sort of interesting to look at with a DiMarzio, is to unscrew the base plate, and see if they put slugs in the coil and/or used rubber washers in place of a metal keeper bar. I'm guessing that particular model has both of those features, like the PAF Master guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7765/dimarzio-paf-master-analysis-review . For some reason DiMarzio trademarked the term PAF, and then it seems did everything they could think of to avoid making an authentic PAF replica, until very recently. 

With an inductance of 5.5H I'd say it's an average PAF, neither over or underwound. 

A bode plot would probably show a typical PAF type pattern, a low Q factor, with just a slight bump at the resonance. 

Thanks for your words Yes, VHP has also that so-called "virtual vintage" tech. That humbucker has the sounds of a paf class tone while also have something very un-paf. Wires,for instance. PAFs normally wound with AWG42 wires, while this one is probably wound with AWG43 because the coils are anorexic. Thats why i call it somehow underwound in my review because coils are almost half full.

On the Dimarzio part, i asked this to Steve Blucher on our interview once and what he told me was "DiMarzio never produced “historically accurate pickup clones”, because we never wanted our pickups to be used as counterfeits or duplicates for the pickups of other manufacturers. If anything, the exact opposite is the case" and i find this is true. Funny thing is they are releasing vintage accurate pickups last couple of years

[antigua]

The consensus is that 42AWG and 43AWG don't produce different sounds, aside from the negligible added series resistance. The capacitance tends to be a little higher with 43AWG, as a result of the coil being taller and thinner, but this is also a small difference, no more than 50 to 100pF. 

Speaking of capacitance, if you have the DE-5000, you can set it to 100kHz "Cp" mode and get the pickup's inductance. It might be interesting considering is uses 43AWG but draws comparison with traditional PAF specs. Keep in mind that the value will be different depending on whether the shielding is included in the measurement. With vintage braided wire, you can't omit the shielding, but with 4 conductor wire, you can choose to leave it out. 

> On the Dimarzio part, i asked this to Steve Blucher on our interview once and what he told me was "DiMarzio never produced “historically accurate pickup clones”, because we never wanted our pickups to be used as counterfeits or duplicates for the pickups of other manufacturers. If anything, the exact opposite is the case" and i find this is true. Funny thing is they are releasing vintage accurate pickups last couple of years

The most plausible explanation I can come up with is that DiMarzio justifies the concept of aftermarket pickups by somehow "improving" them. I put that in quotes because almost if not all their patents for improving humbuckers has very little technical merit. For example, one of their patents is to have coils with different gauge wire, such as one having 43AWG and the other 42AWG. As mentioned above, there's no technical upside or downside to using one size or the other aside from space considerations. If you have room on the bobbin to spare, it's a waste of more expensive fine gauge magnet wire. Steve Blucher seems like a nice guy, but I think DiMarzio has exploited the ignorance of guitar players for decades, and have exploited patents and trademarks as well. Whether they refused to make an accurate PAF due to ego, or because they felt the customer deserved something better than an accurate PAF clone, nobody really knows, but I can take a guess.

[nienturi]

Have you ever measured  a dimarzio with and without so-called scret slugs within the bobbin? How much can they affect the total inductance of the humbucker?

[antigua]

Feb 26, 2024 0:54:03 GMT -5 nienturi said:

Have you ever measured  a dimarzio with and without so-called scret slugs within the bobbin? How much can they affect the total inductance of the humbucker?

Yeah I tested them here guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7771/dimarzios-embedded-slugs , in the screw coil they somehow made a good difference, added 600mH (like I wonder if I made a mistake somehow), but in the slug coil and full assembled, they made a small difference, less than 100mH. 

I don't think they have much technical merit. As a means of increasing inductance, that's not something that is desirable in the first place. As a mean of improving the coupling coefficiency between the coil and the guitar strings, the slugs are off-center with the guitar strings, and DiMarzio could have made them extent all the way down to the magnet, but instead they allow for a substantial air gap between the magnet and the secret slugs. This is one of several patents they hold for guitar pickups that make virtually no difference in how the pickup sounds or performs. I think they believed it would be a marketing win, but almost nobody on the guitar pickup forums ever talks about DiMarzio "air bucker technology" or whatever name they come up with to go along with these pointless appointments. 

[nienturi]

Feb 26, 2024 1:52:43 GMT -5 antigua said:

Feb 26, 2024 0:54:03 GMT -5 nienturi said:

Have you ever measured  a dimarzio with and without so-called scret slugs within the bobbin? How much can they affect the total inductance of the humbucker?

Yeah I tested them here guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7771/dimarzios-embedded-slugs , in the screw coil they somehow made a good difference, added 600mH (like I wonder if I made a mistake somehow), but in the slug coil and full assembled, they made a small difference, less than 100mH. 

I don't think they have much technical merit. As a means of increasing inductance, that's not something that is desirable in the first place. As a mean of improving the coupling coefficiency between the coil and the guitar strings, the slugs are off-center with the guitar strings, and DiMarzio could have made them extent all the way down to the magnet, but instead they allow for a substantial air gap between the magnet and the secret slugs. This is one of several patents they hold for guitar pickups that make virtually no difference in how the pickup sounds or performs. I think they believed it would be a marketing win, but almost nobody on the guitar pickup forums ever talks about DiMarzio "air bucker technology" or whatever name they come up with to go along with these pointless appointments. 

Because "marketing" is everything Similar "things" happen on other major manufacturers, too. Just swap the magnet, voila! You have a new hb model. Change the pole piece, another model comes in. Tell the world some of your hb coils are wound on a vintage PAF winding machine that gibson once has. Okay. So what do you achieve with them? Consistancy? Precision? Or mambo jambo? It's okay to have but the opposite is okay, either

[antigua]

Feb 26, 2024 8:27:43 GMT -5 nienturi said:

Because "marketing" is everything Similar "things" happen on other major manufacturers, too. Just swap the magnet, voila! You have a new hb model. Change the pole piece, another model comes in. Tell the world some of your hb coils are wound on a vintage PAF winding machine that gibson once has. Okay. So what do you achieve with them? Consistancy? Precision? Or mambo jambo? It's okay to have but the opposite is okay, either

I feel like the patents are more egregious, because it's bringing legal mechanisms into the marketing effort. It asserts that the patent office looked at the innovation and agreed that it had merit. Two different manners in which, in my opinion, DiMarzio abused shortcomings in the USPTO. It upsets me also that some people on the Internet write it off as a clever business maneuver, as if what could possibly be an immoral abuse of public institutions should be considered clever. It would be on the same moral plane as "swatting", tricking the police into breaking down the door of someone you dont like. 

The other big pickup maker, doing magnet swap = new product, would be as bad, had they patented the practice somehow, but as its stands it's just a liberal interpretation of what makes a distinctive product. I think you could call that "clever marketing", and no more immoral or unethical than what is generally common in the field of marketing. On the "SDUGF" forum, the company employees tend to be very honest about all of these things. 

[nienturi]

I understand what you're saying. You are definetely not wrong about it. For many years, I kept a distance from DiMarzio, mainly because of the whole "PAF" and "Double Cream" issue. I had grown cold towards the brand and even Larry DiMarzio himself. Honestly, what reconciled me with DiMarzio was the article about the Super Distortion. Throughout the years I kept my distance, I had thought of Larry as a cigar-in-mouth, greedy big boss, and my view completely changed after the S.D. article. Moreover, my view softened even regarding the "double cream" situation, though not much for the "PAF" trademark. I didn't live in America in the '70s, but their claim is (if I understand his claim correctly); if you saw a guitar on stage in the '70s and even '80s with cream humbuckers, that was a DiMarzio. DiMarzio introduced to people (and used as a marketing tool) and that particular color became a symbol of the company. Later, competitor companies tried to capture market share by copying this color. What i simply understand/assume is thats why USPTO gave a trademark. If this is not the case, it means that any of us has the right to apply for a trademark for pickups with coils in pink, blue, purple, or even black and/or white colors

Well, maybe there was a need for such a thing in the '70s or '80s, i don't know. I don't believe for the need to trademark something like that anymore. So let them go, make good pickups for everyone, be a pioneer as much as you can, keep being flagship for aftermarket pickups.

BTW, i have another question for you antigua . Have you ever tried/tested overwound PAFs* like Seymour Duncan Brobucker, PATB-3 which has a unique pole piece design, Mojotone '59 Clone Hot?

*: bobbins are full with awg42 wire

[antigua]

Feb 27, 2024 3:03:41 GMT -5 nienturi said:

 I didn't live in America in the '70s, but their claim is (if I understand his claim correctly); if you saw a guitar on stage in the '70s and even '80s with cream humbuckers, that was a DiMarzio. 

They didn't take aesthetics into consideration back them, that came up more in the 80's and 90's, but this is like saying that if a guy wears a green shirt, then you know his shirt from REI, no green shirts for any other company.