Kinman Converge 3?

[sumitagarwal]

Super surprised there isn't more info out there on these since people seem to like Kinman so much for Fender-y stacks, but apparently their Converge pickup is basically a humbucker in which one bobbin is a stack for noiseless splitting to Strat sounds.

Anyone have any exposure or insights?

[ms]

Go to Kinman's webpage and look up his description of this pickup.  You find this:
"The sounds range continuously variable from the focused growl of a P-90 with stellar highs..."

Yes, most people believe that a P-90 has "stellar highs", but this is not correct.  A P-90 has typically 10,000 turns and steel screws with a relatively flat bobbin, and so the inductance is more than 6 H.  That is, not many highs at all.  (Yes, you can reduce the number of turns to about 8500 to 8600 and get the inductance down to about 4.5 H, and it sounds similar to a PAF humbucker, still not "stellar highs".  So Kinman is playing up to a commonly believed myth, casting doubt on his description.  Perhaps the only way to find out what this pickup does is to get one.

[sumitagarwal]

Mar 4, 2024 13:12:17 GMT -5 ms said:

Go to Kinman's webpage and look up his description of this pickup.  You find this:
"The sounds range continuously variable from the focused growl of a P-90 with stellar highs..."

Yes, most people believe that a P-90 has "stellar highs", but this is not correct.  A P-90 has typically 10,000 turns and steel screws with a relatively flat bobbin, and so the inductance is more than 6 H.  That is, not many highs at all.  (Yes, you can reduce the number of turns to about 8500 to 8600 and get the inductance down to about 4.5 H, and it sounds similar to a PAF humbucker, still not "stellar highs".  So Kinman is playing up to a commonly believed myth, casting doubt on his description.  Perhaps the only way to find out what this pickup does is to get one.

Yup, website and descriptions seem basically useless, so was hoping for some more specs or design details to back things up  =(

Their Strat stacks do have a stellar reputation, and so if they did a good job of combining that with a second coil that balances it out ideally for humbucker operation, that could be great. But that is a big "if", especially when shelling out that kind of money

[stratotarts]

One little puzzle is the USD$85 extra for the noiseless "option". You have to go to the purchase page to see that. Not sure if I missed any explanation on the main page but all that I think I read there called them bucking or noiseless. My honest and full reaction to that kind of vague adjective filled ad copy is best kept offline. Again sad to see a manufacturer withholding meaningful specifications while indulging in pull-out-of-the-hat jargon and superlatives that must mean 100 different things to 100 different people. It's a double shame because they're probably pretty good pickups, not junk. So the hype is so unnecessary. Again. They and many others will keep doing that, and keep saying those things, as long as people fall for it and continue to purchase stuff based on those kinds of descriptions.

It's especially weird when the descriptions contradict the attributes that produce them. They are described in one configuration as both fat and clear. Well fat implies a fairly low frequency response and clear implies a fairly high frequency response. It's like calling something bright but dim.

From the site - "with a very fat but clear low E string" which does describe a sub part not the whole but we know there is no special isolation around the E string...

[sumitagarwal]

Mar 4, 2024 15:58:19 GMT -5 stratotarts said:

One little puzzle is the USD$85 extra for the noiseless "option". You have to go to the purchase page to see that. Not sure if I missed any explanation on the main page but all that I think I read there called them bucking or noiseless. My honest and full reaction to that kind of vague adjective filled ad copy is best kept offline. Again sad to see a manufacturer withholding meaningful specifications while indulging in pull-out-of-the-hat jargon and superlatives that must mean 100 different things to 100 different people. It's a double shame because they're probably pretty good pickups, not junk. So the hype is so unnecessary. Again. They and many others will keep doing that, and keep saying those things, as long as people fall for it and continue to purchase stuff based on those kinds of descriptions.

It's especially weird when the descriptions contradict the attributes that produce them. They are described in one configuration as both fat and clear. Well fat implies a fairly low frequency response and clear implies a fairly high frequency response. It's like calling something bright but dim.

From the site - "with a very fat but clear low E string" which does describe a sub part not the whole but we know there is no special isolation around the E string...

Yea, it's honestly a big turn off overall. With some of the larger outfits like DiMarzio that are also using a lot of vague descriptors I can be a little more comfortable since there are so many impressions and analyses done by others that I can at least vaguely know what I would be getting...

[stratotarts]

You have to find the premise very important (a pickup that has multiple voices). It's at least interesting and may be useful to someone. If that feature is valuable to you, they might be the right product for you, notwithstanding the hype. There's no mystery about coil switching, it's been going on for many decades. Many people find it unnecessary, if you want different voicing, it's possible to just collect more guitars. A lot of people do that anyway, and as a bonus you can match the pickups to a unique body/neck in each case. Even from big name manufacturers, you could get great conventional pickups for less than that kind of money. Often the real reason for something new is that the manufacturer has run out of differences with other manufacturers products, need something to differentiate their products. Pickup design is so worked to death that it's hard to do anything really new that is really worthwhile.