Fender Custom '54 Strat Pickup Set Analysis & Review

[antigua]

Fender has a couple Strat sets with '54 in the title, these and the "60th Anniversary 1954" set, which is supposedly out of production, but there is still unsold stock available. Where as those have AlNiCo 3 pole pieces, this "Fender Custon '54 Strat Set" has AlNiCo 5 pole pieces.

Strangely, even though the bridge pickup measured 6.5k, while the neck and middle measured ~6.0k, the inductance and resonant peaks are all nearly identical. There are reasons the DC resistance can vary without differences to the inductance, such as wire stretching, or wire that is thinner and nominal, leading to higher resistance for the same length of wire. On Fender's site they list these exact same DC resistances and inductances for the neck and middle pickup shop.fender.com/en-US/parts/pickups-preamps/custom-shop-custom-54-stratocaster-pickups/0992112000.html , but they claim the bridge pickup is 2.75H where as I measure ~2.4H for all three pickups, and the resonant peaks are all very nearly identical, so that's double corroboration of equality between the three, despite the higher DC resistance of the bridge pickup.

Actual 1954 Strat pickups were three of a kind, so it's actually more correct that they be all the same, as opposed to Fender's specs, which shows a slightly hotter bridge pickup. A red dot indicates which pickup is intended to be the bridge pickup, but these are non-RW/RP, so in light of the electrical all being the same, these pickups could be placed anywhere.

As fas as where these pickups fit in the Fender product like of pickups, they're slightly higher inductance 57/62's, or like having the Fat 50's without the RW/RP, and without the higher inductance bridge. I'm hesitant to say "hotter", because an additional 200 millihenries of inductance is not going to push an amp noticeably harder, or sound noticeably different. The difference in the loaded resonant peak is only 100Hz lower than the 57/62 set, at 4.1kHz. Without knowing Fender's manufacturing tolerances, I'd also hazard to guess that they within the margin for error between two different production runs of the same pickup. The Pure Vintage '65 also has similar electrical values and magnets, but with gray bobbins.

I'm not sure how long this set has been around, but according to Amazon they were first listed in 2004. I had avoided buying this set sooner because they're very similar to a lot of other Fender AlNiCo 5 Strat sets, but I'm finding that I like the extra magnetic strength of AlNiCo 5 and so I'm planning to pop out some of the hotter AlNiCo 2 and 3 sets and replace them with vintage style AlNiCo 5 sets.


Fender Custon '54 Strat Set

Bridge
- DC Resistance: 6.500K ohms
- Measured L: 2.418H
- Calculated C: 104pF
- Gauss: 1050G (AlNiCo 5)

Middle
- DC Resistance: 5.992K ohms
- Measured L: 2.384H
- Calculated C: 115pF
- Gauss: 1050G (AlNiCo 5)

Neck
- DC Resistance: 6.075K ohms
- Measured L: 2.335H
- Calculated C: 109pF
- Gauss: 1050G (AlNiCo 5)

Bridge unloaded: dV: 15.0dB f: 9.59kHz (black)
Bridge loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 7.2dB f: 4.08kHz (blue)
Middle unloaded: dV: 15.0dB f: 9.59kHz (red)
Middle loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 7.2dB f: 4.08kHz (green)
Neck unloaded: dV: 15.0dB f: 9.59kHz (pink)
Neck loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 7.2dB f: 4.08kHz (gray)