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General comments:
I must say I will never ever pay for name brand high dollar pickups again. I still stand by my statement that pickups are the most overpriced thing in the guitar world. They are simple units that are not expensive to make unless you are a very small company and cant get bulk discounts on the parts to make such things. But even as a consumer the parts to make your own pickups are very small compared to what you will pay for a finished set. Regardless of whether or not its the soul of your guitar and the voice or whatever you may choose to call it the fact of the matter is the price of pickups is the same with anything else, they sell you a name and hype. Now lets say you try cheap pickups and you hate them all and truly let your ears make the decision and not your preconceived notions of what is, isnt and will be then by all means high dollar pickups are a good choice for you. I cant and wont discredit someone elses decision to pay more if that is the only thing that will make them happy. But I must admit I will feel sorry for you as I will be just as happy with more money in my wallet.
Fit and Finish:
Now on to the pickups. The fit and finish is amazing. The pickups came in a small white box with simple stickers on the outside labeling the product and were neatly wrapped in styrofoam sheeting and the covers had a thick clear vinyl covering over the front to protect against scratches during install. This isn't the same material found on most import pickups where its hard to remove and is often stuck under the pole piece screws and is a PITA to remove but rather reminds me of the material of window cling decals.
The covers were very well chromed with a superb mirror finish to them that showed no signs of peeling, scratches or lifting of the chrome anywhere and were neatly soldered to the base plate. The covers were not super thin cheap covers. They were very solid and I could not flex the edges with my fingers as I thought I would be able to. Remember I was really not expecting much. The base plate itself is of solid brass that itself had a nice brushed (almost looked machined rather than stamped) finish. The base plate wasn't super thick but was definitely sturdy enough for its purpose and was also screwed to the bobbins with four decent sized phillips screws (no glue!). It was well cut and looked very professional compared to some of the no name pickups i have removed from import guitars. The tabs for the mounting screws were beveled at the corners. Not square cut tabs with sharp corners. Again its not a huge deal but again I wasn't expecting this kind of attention to detail. Each pickup came with a good amount of lead and wires were tinned and the red and white coil tap wires were pre-soldered together if not tapping so they could be taped back out of the way. Again nice little details I wasn't expecting. Overall I was very impressed with what I got for my money but I knew to not judge a book by its cover.
Sound:
This is where it got fun and interesting. The pickups for my style of playing are amazing. I was expecting something totally different but was pleasantly surprised. Lets start with the bridge pickup. The pickup is a hot sounding pickup with tons of output. But unlike many high output bridge pickups wound to limits this was wound to (16.9K) the pickup was not muddy. It has a very very touch sensitive dynamic quality I wasn't expecting. It has an enormous amount of harmonic qualities to it and makes pinch and artificial harmonics effortless. You never have to strangle your guitar or feel you have to choke the sound out of it your trying to achieve. You hear every nuance in your playing style. The pickup is very responsive to various picking techniques and is again very touch sensitive. The harder you dig in the harder they seem to work. They were not muddy at all yet even the highest highs sang without the harsh tinny quality that can be had with some pickups. To me a perfectly balanced bridge pickup that has the best qualities from both the low and high end. These pickups appear to have a lot more midrange than I am used to. Not in a bad way at all. They just had a really good e.q. curve that was pleasant to the ear. Though for those who really need that super scooped sound that i'm not a huge fan of you might not find these pickups to suit you. But If you like to scoop mids on your amp but would still like your sound to be able to cut through these will definitely get you there. Scooping the mids entirely from my amp the sound never went flat and lifeless like with pickups that all ready have a scooped e.q. range on their own. I still got that good nu metal sound but it never got flabby and lifeless. I seriously had a grin on my face that could not be swayed. At very high volume levels I was getting some feedback but this was with my amp volume on 8 with the boost on sitting with the guitar about a foot away from the cabinet. Standing a couple feet away I had no feedback or noise. They are very quiet pickups for how hot they are with no microphonics to be had.
The neck pickup was the perfect compliment to the bridge. I'm never impressed with most neck pickups I buy and even less impressed when I buy pre made sets from companies. The neck humbucker really reminded me of an M22V believe it or not. It had that glassy high end that the M22V is known for only it had a much more present and apparent low end to it. Very bell like but again never muddy. To me it really complimented the sound of the bridge pickup well and unlike a lot of neck pickups it has quite a bit of harmonic content on tap. One thing I hate about a lot of neck pickups is when switching from the bridge to the neck I would want to turn my bass control on my amp down as it always sounded muddy. Again not in this case. Just an all around great sounding neck pickup with a nice pop to it when aggressively picking. I really liked the soloing sounds I was getting in the neck positition.
Both pickups combined gave a really good blend of the two with neither pickup dominating the sound but rather a true blend of them being combined. Almost as when people want to be able to hear individual note definition when playing a chord, you could hear the individual qualities of each pickup but with them working together. A lot of times for me when using the middle position you could no longer hear the individual characteristics of each pickup but actually a whole new sound that had little to do with the original sound of each pickup by themselves.
One final note about the sound of the set is that they are well matched. Switching from the bridge to the neck and vice versa had no apparent drop in volume or increase for that matter. The volume was at a constant no matter what position I threw the three way in. For those of you who are constantly cursed with going from your bridge to your neck pickup and immediately find yourself going for your volume knob you will be pleased with these as a set.
Overall opinion:
Again due to this experience I will no longer feel the need to seek out the most expensive pickups to achieve a tone that is not only acceptable but downright gratifying. I was more than impressed with every single aspect of this purchase and have all ready ordered there active set as these pickups have given me high hopes on G.P.O.'s products. Not only was the materials and fit and finish top notch but the tone of these pickups would have been money well spent even if the fit and finish had been less than what I had received. It is a breath of fresh air to know that I can have the sound I want without breaking the bank to do it in at least one area of the signal chain. In today's guitar market we are led to believe that the more dollars we spend the better our sound will become. In many cases this has been proven to be a fact so its very refreshing to actually find a true deal in our never ending sea of high dollar upgrades. In closing the only thing I can say is if your doubting my words or are any bit skeptical about my review Its only $30 and your not out much if you find that you don't like them. Its a small price to pay to potentially find your tone at a bargain price.
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