Post by antigua on Sept 25, 2016 18:31:25 GMT -5
shop.fender.com/en-US/accessories/pickups/fender-texas-special-strat-pickups/0992111000.html
Texas Specials first appeared in the SRV sig Strat in the early 90's, and then due to the SRV "Texas" tone fetish that continues to this day, they had to offer just the pickups, and even created a Tele version of "Texas Specials". They use enamel insulated wire, like CS 69's or PV 65's.
Fender Texas Special Bridge
DC Resistance: 6.79K
Inductance: 3.171 H
Resonant Peak: 7.05kHz kHz
Calculated C: 153pF (173-20)
Coil width: 0.5300"
Fender Texas Special Middle
DC Resistance: 6.31K
Inductance: 2.803 H
Resonant Peak: 7.46 kHz
Calculated C: 141pF (162-20)
Coil width: 0.5205"
Fender Texas Special Neck
DC Resistance: 6.12K
Inductance: 2.578 H
Resonant Peak: 8.75 kHz
Calculated C: 108pF (128-20)
Coil width: 0.5135"
Texas Specials features AlNiCo 5 pole pieces, with gauss readings between 900 and 1050, and B poles that read down near 800. I saw the same thing happen with the Seymour Duncan Antiquity II pickups. It makes sense than a smaller magnet reads less gauss, but the high E pole is about the same size and reads a solid 1050 gauss. I wonder if when they charge the pole pieces, the additional distance of the B string below the G and D causes the B pole to not get as close to the source of the coercive charge. Just a guess.
The set is definitely hot, with a 3.2H bridge, 2.8H middle and 2.5H neck. The Texas Special neck measures near identical to the Fat 50 bridge. The set has a rather wide loaded peak resonance spread between the neck, middle and bridge, 3.4kHz, 3.6kHz and 3.8kHz, a spread of 400Hz. It's definitely a "balanced set", more so than say, the the Seymour Duncan Antiquity I and Antiquity II sets, which have very high output bridges, matched with much lower output neck and middles.
The set has a rather wide output spread between neck, middle and bridge than any Fender set I've seen yet 3.4, 3.6 and 3.8kHz, a spread of 400Hz. The Fat 50's by contrast has a loaded resonant peak spread of only 180Hz.
Similar to the Fat 50's, there is a wide variance in capacitance, and hence the unloaded peak resonances look to be far apart, but the relatively small deviations in capacitance are greatly offset by the guitar cable's high capacitance. The inductance and loaded peak resonance figures are closer and very evenly spaced, suggesting the winds counts are also evenly spaced also. So, like the Fat 50's, Texas Specials are precise where it counts, and sloppy where it doesn't.
The Texas Special neck pickup measures very close to the SSL-1, but the bridge and middle are definitely darker pickups, with higher inductances and lower peaks. However, even the hotter Texas Special bridge is is nowhere near as hot as an SSL-5 with an inductance that is sure to be well above 4 henries, so a typical SSL-5/SSL-1/SSL-1 configuration mean a hotter set than the Texas Special set, overall.
Texas Specials are often compared to Lollar Blackfaces. The loaded peaks suggest the Blackfaces don't feature as wide of a spread between the neck middle and bridge, with peaks of 3.7,3.8,3.8 kHz respectively, to the Texas Special's 3.4, 3.6, 3.8kHz.
The Blackfaces have flat pole pieces, so they will have a different string balance than the Texas Specials, one that favors the higher and lower strings. The Blackfaces will also have a higher voltage output than the Texas Specials, with inductances of 3.3, 3.1 and 3.0 henries to the Texas Special's 3.1, 2.8 and 2.6 henries.
The reason the loaded peaks between the Texas Specials and the Lollar Blackfaces are so close, despite the higher inductance of the Blackfaces, is because the Blackfaces have a very low capacitance compared to the Texas Specials. I worked out around 90pF for the Lollars, 140pF for the Texas Specials, or a ~35% difference. The Lollar Blackfaces have fatter coils, measuring .60" to the Texas Specials' .52". Even with cloth tape, the Lollars are quite a bit fatter. Capacitance is a result of area and proximity between conductive surfaces, so it's very possible that the tighter winder, or overall narrower distance between the winding on the Texas Specials is what causes their higher capacitance. Lollar claims to "scatter wind" the Blackfaces, that could account for the wider coil and lower capacitance. But that's just a guess, it might also owe to the dielectric constant of the enamel coating, or the thickness of the enamel coating, compared to whatever Lollar uses. Hopefully a trend will emerge with enough data points.
Texas Specials are a controversial set on guitar forums. My theory is that the combination of the hotter wind with the vintage stagger AlNiCo 5 is what turns some guitarists of to Texas Specials. With a hotter wind, the loaded resonance goes from the treble range down to the upper mids, and the buck toothed, vintage stagger G and D pole pieces put more emphasis on the G and D strings, which also impart a lot of upper mids. The result is an over abundance of upper mids. The vintage stagger doesn't seem to be as big of a problem with lower output Strat sets, such as CS 69's, 57/62's, etc. The Lollar Blackfaces have a flat stagger, and so they avoid the issue of over-prominent G and D strings, as do PAF type humbuckers and most other non-Strat pickups on the market.
Setup details:
Bode plots are made with a Velleman PCSGU250 and the supplied probes in 10x mode, with the function generator feeding a driver coil of 0.48mH, placed on top of the pickup and driven with 2Vpp. The pickup is connected to an integrator circuit, designed by Ken Willmottkenwillmott.com/blog/, with a Velleman 10x probe, and fed back into the Velleman PCSGU250. I measured the probes' capacitance at 20pF, so that amount is subtracted from the capacitance calculation.
The inductance and Q measurements are made with an Extech 380193 in "SER" series mode, and the mean value between the 1kHz and 120Hz modes is recorded. The capacitance value is derived from the inductance and measured resonant peak.
Magnets are tested with a Spin Doctor ER gravitastech.weebly.com/spin-doctor-er.html
