Post by antigua on Feb 25, 2020 4:51:54 GMT -5
Product URL: www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x/StratocasterPickups_x/Mojotone-58-Quiet-Coil-Strat-Pickup
I've been wanting to get ahold of these for a while, but at $230 for a set it was hard to justify, but after receiving them, I'm very surprised but how novel they are, and given the unique fabrication involved, I don't believe $230 is too expensive anymore. I had found a used set for cheap on Reverb, and bought it.
All the smoke and mirrors of the aftermarket pickup business has made me cynical, and I was expecting little more than a single coil sized humbucker with fake plastic pole pieces on top. That's actually what it is, but it has some key features that set it apart: rather than use steel blades like all other single coil sized humbuckers on the market, it has AlNiCo bars, like a Firebird pickup. Avoiding steel and using AlNiCo give them a high Q factor that is characteristic of actual Fender single coils, as well as keep the inductance low, like real Fender single coils. They claim that they match the inductance and resonant peak of a "vintage single coil", and that looks to be true, based on these measurements:
Mojotone Quiet Coils
Bridge
- DC Resistance: 6.337K ohms
- Measured L: 2.550H (2.329H without baseplate)
- Calculated C: 84.13pF (79.5pF without baseplate)
- Gauss: 800G (AlNiCo 5) (700G with baseplate)
Middle
- DC Resistance: 5.944K ohms
- Measured L: 2.216H
- Calculated C: 85.62pF
- Gauss: 800G (AlNiCo 5)
Neck
- DC Resistance: 5.943K ohms
- Measured L: 2.399H
- Calculated C: 85.91pF
- Gauss: 800G (AlNiCo 5)
Bridge unloaded: dV: 8.1dB f: 10.3 kHz (black)
Bridge loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 5.4dB f: 3.98kHz (blue)
Middle unloaded: dV: 7.8dB f: 10.7 kHz (red)
Middle loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 5.6dB f: 4.27kHz (green)
Neck unloaded: dV: 8.0dB f: 10.9 kHz (pink)
Neck loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 5.4dB f: 4.08kHz (black)
All of the specs are more or less indistinguishable from a standard Fender Strat single coil. Even the flux density over the pickup is close. An inductance of 2.2H to 2.5H and capacitances around 85pF, and a loaded resonant peak at 4kHz with a resonant amplitude of 5dB is all spot on. On this web page they say the quiet coils are designed to work with 500k pots www.mojotone.com/uploads/StratQuietCoilFAQs.pdf , but these measurement show that 250k pots would be the more authentic choice, as they are nearly identical to real AlNiCo single coils otherwise. 500k would make sense if they had a low Q factor, but the presence of resistive AlNiCo bars ensures the Q factor remains high. Their explanation as to why 500k pots would be preferable is a technical non sequitur. Maybe they bought 500k pots in bulk and are trying to rationalize why they used them in their loaded Strat pick guards, that's just a guess.
Note though that there is no "stagger", so where as a true Strat pickup has a characteristic emphasis on the G and D strings, these will sound more even across, like a Tele pickup. They boast that as a feature "you never have to worry about string spacing and fretboard radius issues" but what one person calls an issue, another calls authenticity.
A flux strength of 800 guass is somewhere in between the flux strenth of AlNiCo 2 and ALNiCo 5, but because the magnetic circuit is different, it's sort of apples and oranges. Overall, it has a weaker string pull than AlNiCo 5 pole pieces and is probably more comparable to AlNiCo 2. To get a stronger magnetic pull, just scoot the pickup closer to the strings.
These pickups also feature base plates. Usually a base plate on a Fender single coil are gimmicky, because they aren't adding anything that cant be had through simpler means, but in this case, the parts are so tightly fit that they would have to resort to other means to hit the spec targets. The presence of the base plate under the Strat quite coils boosts the Gauss strength from ~700 Gauss to ~800, and increases the inductance of the bridge pickup from 2.3H to 2.5H.
Thirty years ago the plastic pole pieces would have looked tacky, but ever since the relic'ing thing has taken off, they look good, in by today's standards. The dull gray plastic closely resembles the "aged" pole pieces of Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups.
The fake pole piece spacing is 52mm, so standard Strat covers fit, but barely squeeze over the top, but if you put some muscle into it, they fit. The Quiet Coil's coils are taller than vintage coils by about a millimeter, so the covers are also slightly taller than a typical pickup cover. The insider of the cover say "DIMARZIO USA", so I'm guessing these are the same covers that DiMarzio uses for their Area pickups. The previous owner of this set blacked the covers out with a magic marker.
The hookup wire is the high quality, cloth pull back type.
I take issue with some of their marketing, which is another reason I was reluctant to buy a set. They say "No PC boards, batteries, stacked coils, or anything else associated with other hum-canceling pickups were used in our design." That's just false, these are substantially similar to single coil sized humbuckers, and the use of AlNiCo bars as cores is not a new idea, either. These are a mashup of two conventional designs. "Vintage formulated Alnico magnet cores with lower Gauss levels like an aged vintage strat pickup." , 1) the Guass is lower due to geometry, not formulation, 2) there's no evidence that aged pickups actually feature lower flux densities, that after fifty years the AlNiCo will read significantly lower flux density, and AlNiCo manufactures say it should remain stable for decades, yet the marketers push the idea that older equals weaker. "-Consistent scatterwound coils for that handwound tone, sensitivity, and clarity." "Consistent scatter wound" sounds like a euphemism for "machine wound". Also the FAQ linked about is rather patronizing "Can I get a custom wound?" " No, they're perfect already."
