Post by antigua on Dec 22, 2019 14:12:29 GMT -5
I'm seeing $19.99 on Amazon for this set at the current moment
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JJ3N755/?tag=strattalk05-20 . For all intents and purposes, this is almost a Fender CS '69 style set for $20. A lot of cheap Chinese sets resemble CS 69's because both had cost cutting in mind, in that they use slightly less turns of wire than a typical 6.0k Strat pickup in order to cut costs. This is probably the best value I've seen yet for Strat pickups, $20 for real fiber board, real AlNiCo, and passable electrical specs. The set is also RW/RP.
Stewmac sells a single pickup blank for as much as all three of these pickups combined, and that's not even including the magnet wire, which is worth about $5 alone, so if you're interested in creating your own single coil pickups, you would save quite a lot of money by buying these instead, tearing them down and then re-winding them to your liking.
The inductance values are very low, ~1.6 henries where as the typical Strat would be between 2.2 henries and 2.8 henries. The loaded peaks of those Fender pickups is around 4.0khz, these pickups have peaks around 4.5kHz for the bridge and 4.7kHz for the neck and middle, but at these high frequencies, the difference is not very audible, since the harmonics at these frequencies dissipate so fast. Most of what is heard in this frequency range is the sound of the pick brushing against the guitar strings.
Unlike most $20 Chinese pickups, the bobbins of these pickups are high quality, vintage style vulcanized fiber board. Even to this day, a lot of higher priced Fender Sets, such as the Tex Mex or the V-Mod sets still use cheap plastic bobbins. The bobbin doesn't have any electrical effect though, it's just a matter of the pickup resembling the vintage originals. Although, the coils are taped with a cheap black tape instead of the nicer cloth tape. Vintage Strat pickup were never taped at all.
The hookup wire is also good quality, vinyl on the inside, with a (polyester?) cloth outer coat, the kind that has been used with Artec pickups for a long tine. It's not as authentic as true cloth pull back wire, but it's better than the plain-Jane hookup wire seen on cheaper Fender pickups.
Regarding the plastic covers, the good news is that they're a solid color, there is no logo of an imaginary name brand in China, but the bad news is that while the bridge and middle pickup measure 52mm like regular Strat pickups, the neck measures 50mm, so if you try to replace the neck cover, the pole pieces will not line up perfectly, but it can be made to work, if you force it.
As seen in the pick, one of the AlNiCo pole pieces has a black magic marker blotch on it. Some sort of solvent might take it off. I'd complain more about that if the pickups did cost only $20.
Belcat BS-01WH Alnico V Strat Set
Bridge
- DC Resistance: 5.805K ohms
- Measured L: 1.786H
- Calculated C: 155pF
- Gauss: 1050G (AlNiCo 5)
Middle
- DC Resistance: 5.363K ohms
- Measured L: 1.638H
- Calculated C: 142pF
- Gauss: 1050G (AlNiCo 5)
Neck
- DC Resistance: 5.408K ohms
- Measured L: 1.682H
- Calculated C: 140pF
- Gauss: 1050G (AlNiCo 5)
Bridge unloaded: dV: 14.8dB f: 9.37kHz (black)
Bridge loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 8.1dB f: 4.57kHz (blue)
Middle unloaded: dV: 14.8dB f: 10.0kHz (red)
Middle loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 8.1dB f: 4.73kHz (green)
Neck unloaded: dV: 14.8dB f: 10.0kHz (pink)
Neck loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 8.1dB f: 4.73kHz (gray)
