SD Livewire neck + EMG 85 (bridge) combination : sucks(?)

[Deleted]

Hello,

had something a little bit strange this morning after swapping out Seymour Duncan Livewire metal (bridge) with EMG 85. This is the new EMG 85 with the new logo and the solder-less cable. At first, by only tapping with metal onto the pup's cases I noticed that the EMG 85 was noticeably hotter than the livewire, which was something that I did not expect, as I knew that livewire neck is pretty hot and generally very nice sounding pickup. Not any more.... Also the EMG 85 sounded way hot, (much?) hotter than EMG81/EMG60 I had in another guitar stock, to the point of definitely clipping, although being powered by 18V twin battery. I expected a nice fat sounding bridge pup to replace that ultra mid-boosted monster livewire metal, but no. EMG85 is trebly, does not sound right. And the biggest shock is that livewire neck no longer sounds nice. I think its output dropped. And the combination in mid position sucks.
Granted, the livewires have 100KOhm pots, while EMG85 need 25KOhm pots, and currently the guitar has the 100KOhm pots in.
I never really experimented with actives, but it seems that something is not right here.

Any ideas?

[Deleted]

Just tried the 33Kohm in parallel trick (to drop resistance to 25 Kohm). Same results. Also the EMG85 is BY FAR more noisy than Livewire.

[newey]

Greek-

Unfortunately, I think you and studiostriver are the only active pickup fans around here. I certainly have no advice, I wouldn't know an active pickup if it came up and bit me in the posterior.