I really like that you used multiple passages for comparison and mixed up the order of the comparisons. My first thought when seeing that you were comparing 4 magnets was that it was unfortunate that we wouldn't get back-to-back comparisons between certain pairs. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was wrong. This is a fantastic comparison. I found that AlNiCo III had my favorite bass side sound and AlNiCo II had my favorite treble side sound. Now I wish I could get half-sized magnets. Haha
Excellent video, Joe. I never expected such a noticeable change when comparing magnets! I agree the Alnico II sounded appropriate for that guitar (through RU-vid anyway). I am a believer that pick-ups and speaker are the key mods to any rig. The celestion gold and alnico II seem to complement each other very well. Thanks for the huge effort. I can imagine it was a massive pain. Totally worth it!
Very informative and helpful video! I now feel confident in my decision to go with the Mojotone 59 PAF's since I found the A4 magnets to be the most pleasing to my ears in this video. I was also surprised to hear how much of an acoustical tonal quality the A5's had here. Thanks!
Surprised to say I seemed to favour the 4 in the bridge. 5 sounded great too. I can't even imagine how long it took to make this vid. Great stuff. Thanks for all the effort. Cheers!
Prior to your comments about what you were hearing in the different pickups, I had already pegged the Alnico 2's were the best sounding. I thought your comments were spot on and was amazed that you thought that the Alnico 2's sounded the best too. Thought for sure you were going for the 5"s, but happy that you heard the same things that I did...
Joe, I went to university to learn loudspeaker design and acoustics. This comparison/contrast study is worthy of a masters degree presentation. I was shocked at the differences. Although I'm not going through the enormous effort to change magnets, I'm going to spend this weekend adjusting the heights of my pickups (5 instruments) because magnetic strength clearly is important and I'm beginning to appreciate that they influence the movement of strings. The saw-tooth Jaguar pickups on my bass VI strongly attract a screwdriver to them and this bass is punchy with no sustain. I suspect that the magnets are very strong and the pickups should be dropped. Thank you for your efforts, but now I have a huge study to conduct myself! Best wishes.
Do consider that the differences between magnets isn't just magnet strength, as the magnet composition plays a big role in the inductance of the pickup. Thus the different compositions result in differences in inductance, which plays a role in how they sound. Perhaps variable inductance and variable magnet strength could be used to arrive at what would be the ideal combination, from one individual to the next, and from one guitar to the next.
Joe, I'm late to this party... but this is absolutely fantastic! I am imagining the hours spent to make this 19 minute video. Personally I liked the IV, 4 sound best overall... that is listening to this streaming at whatever kbps with whatever compression RU-vid uses. Fantastic job!
Marvelous work Joe. Well worth the effort and thanks for making this video so we could hear differences. I too like the Alnico II’s and IV’s in Bridge on my Strat. PAF’s are best in A-II’s. Nice guitar. Cheers.
Very interesting, and THANKS for doing this. I'm now convinced that a lot of the early PAF's (Jimmy Page, Kossoff) had A4 magnets. I think A2 sounded the best, because I could hear fatter yet still defined highs. If I played in a power trio with a Les Paul, I'd go A4. Again, great job on getting the contrasts so clear.
As an electrical engineer I see it like this: increasing the Alnico number and thus the gauss strength, increases the inductance of the pickup. This will strengthen the higher frequencies and the overall amplitude. So higher Alnico numbers will usually tend towards a harsher sound. The Alnico 2 are a very good compromise in most cases regarding the spectral balance. An additional effect is that the changed Inductance together with the pickup capacitance controls the resonance frequency of the pickup. Depending on the capacitance of the pickup this may seriously change the characteristic of the pickup sound. On the other hand just by measuring the original inductance and capacitance of the original pickup the resulting sound of the the pickup with changed magnet can be relatively easily predicted. That is the beauty of science .... once you want to get away from guessing and wondering ....
Great video and great effort! I have Wizz with A4 and A2. The A4 has incredible harmonics and the most singing lead tone I’ve ever had. Downside is that they are a bit more compressed mid-rangey and not as dynamic for rhythm guitar. The A2 is more detailed and have a great dynamic range but don’t have that super responsive and singing lead sound as much. On your video, the A2 sounded huge and complex. It may have been my favorite for you. However, as well done as this video is, its pretty well impossible to get a sense of the feel and response of the different mags. That would surely have a big impact on my preferences
That was very good. I’m pleased someone out there is going to this kind of effort! My advice would be to do another video where you use some software to measure the frequency range of the pickups and compare them using a little bit of science. I think you could easily get another video out of all your work!
I'm not _that_ into frequency analysers etc - I tend to just go with what I'm hearing rather than getting too deep into the exact physics of it. I'll leave that vid to somebody far more knowledgable than I! :P
Thank you for spending the time to do this. Your commitment and attention to detail is admirable. I found this a very interesting test. In some ways I was surprised at how little difference there was and in others how much difference there was. It's difficult to describe. My takeaway is that the A2s are the most chimey and harmonic, the A5s thicker/darker, with less subtle harmonics from the guitar but they were pushing the amp more, which is sometimes desirable. The A4s had a nice tonal balance, with almost all the subtle harmonics of the A2s but perhaps a little more harmonics from the amp being pushes a little more. The 3s seemed similar to the 2s to me but didn't really stand out. For my purposes, needing a versatile tone, I'm leaning towards the A4s. I really liked their balance of tone and response. I'd love to see the same test done with P90s, or humbucker sized P90s, as it'd be interesting to see where the sweet spot is with them. Thanks again.
wow well done! must have been quite an undertaking. Great reference tool. I recently acquired some Bulldog pafs (highly recommend!) and they came with A3 or A4 neck and A5 bridge. Loving the A4 neck and A5 bridge combo in an 335. Bridge is wound slightly hotter. Also got a les Paul with BKP mules A4s.
Perk I love your videos.. You just keep comparing the things I'm interested in. PLEASE use a Fuzz Face as a part of your comparison :) They are so picky about what goes into them that I think it would be an important area to ''check''. And of course a JTM45 is a great amp to check those into :)
love the guitar! Very cool video! I liked all the magnets. lol. I have a telecaster with Alnico 3 magnets and love them. To my ears, they seem to do something a little different. Great job!
How fun! I thought the IV was the loudest with the fatness of the II but better highs. I heard more upper mids and more balance over all in the V's, "a magnet for everyone". I thought the II was a little muddy and dull. And the III predictably lower output and bright. But it all depends on your guitar settings how they will compare in the real world. I do not like the Gibson 490 (II) as I find them quite dull and lack luster. I use similar pickups with V that I love. Thanks for doing this!
Really nicely done ! It might have been quite a pain to go though all those modifications. A hell lot of work and patience, congrats. As you say in the outro part, the magnets make a hell of a difference. Same magnets : an alnico IV set For combinaisons : Alnico III and Alnico II, I think both ways would work. I would associate A II (B) + A III (N) with blues and rock whereas A III (B) + A III (N) may fit more country, pop and jazz.
Very well done video! 👍 IMO A5 was too boomy in the bass and I didn’t like the tone in the A3. A2 and A4 was more equal. I should take A2 for a guitar with much chord playing and A4 for chords and solos. So overall I think I would pick A4.
My favourite pickup combinations in my guitars are alnico IV neck with V bridge, alnico II neck V bridge or alnico III both neck and bridge all sound amazing in their own ways👍
@@aristidesvillegas7167 its all personal preference and depends on the music played i.e im talking vintage style paf tones over heavy rock or metal but i find alnico V neck pickups to bassy maybe because its the strongest magnet out of the 4 mentioned
I recently isntalled an Alnico V on my SG neck, and Alnico IV on Bridge AND althought as you said neck pick up has now More bassy sound I Loved it because Is bassy but with definition.
The worst part: you'll never find another Alnico IV like that sound-wise. Alnico IV is literally a range of each metal component that make up an Alnico magnet. While the amount of Nickel is constant in each of the other Alnico magnets, Alnico IV is not, it's whatever the maker decided to put in within a specified range. Same with Aluminum and Cobalt.
I love A-IV's. I've used them for ages. I have probably 7 or 8 early T-Tops an have installed A-4's in each one and to my ears they just sound right. They sound the closest to a my PAF's and to early Pat.#'s (really PAF's with the next gen sticker..).
Great video. Harrison's red "Lucy" Les Paul that was used heavily on The Beatles' last three albums, as it turns out had Alnico III and it's a crisp and bright guitar. Here, they seem less bright than the II's; weird. Now with some overdrive, the III sounds brighter. I'm thinking the IV for the bridge and III for the neck would make a nice pair. The IV has an aggressive, larger feel than the others to me. The V has a nice amount of all frequencies. I think the V and III are the best "all 'rounder" magnets, as best I can tell. NICE JOB!
Very well done. All magnets seemed to have their own pluses and minuses, and I suspect it's a you say, guitar dependent. As well as personal preference, playing style, etc.
I was also very surprised by the sonic differences. More obvious than complete pickup changes often are. I liked the 2 best too. I like the clean 50's sounds. The 5s definitely sounded more modern but have a nasal quality I'm not keen on. I have spent a lot of time reducing this in my old semi acoustic. I won't be changing any magnets though. I have finally got a sound I really like. Have you tried alnico 8? A thought on coils and magnets: In speakers, a lightweight coil in a heavy magnetic field generally gives a quicker, more immediate sound, think Lowther drivers. Gretsch Filtertrons have relatively low coil impedence, suggesting fewer windings, a lightweight coil but still have the output, suggesting heavier magnets. They also have the clearer, less low-end sound. Maybe that is worth experimenting with, say, PAFs with low windings and super powerful magnets. Keep up the good work.
I've not tried A8 - I tend to just stick with the vintage spec stuff as that's the sound I know I like. So that probably also means I won't be experimenting too much with low wind/powerful magnet PAFs :P I like living in my tiny little box ;-) heh
Awesome video. You mention you can hear a difference between covered and uncovered humbuckers. For me it never made much difference. Perhaps a cool idea for a future video to compare covered vs uncovered 😉
4 gives the bridge a sparkle... but 2 (or3) has the acoustic warmth on the neck. It gets worse when using P90s (only at neck... seen my self combine a 5 & 2, because that's all I had & got a magic cleen strum}. Tooo many variables! It's when we get a crap dull sound we notice it most
Really interesting video Joe. The Alnico 3 was my least favourite. I loved both the A2 and the A4 but i think the A4 has and edge on the A2 because it has a more "balanced" tone. Speaking of pickups, Joe i have a question for you: I know you have/had a LP with humbucker sized P90. Do you think there is a tone difference between soapbar P90 and humbucker sized P90?
Oh that's an interesting pickup comparison. That would be complicated by mounting dimensions but nonetheless a scholarly study. If only we could motivate a guitar manufacturer to sponsor it. Perhaps Perky could collaborate with Rob Chapman!
Thanks Enrico :-) Yeah, the A4 seemed to have the 'flattest' tone of them all, but not in any bad way. I've never really done a comparison of the HSP90s and soapbar/dogear 'real' P90s....it's the Bare Knuckle Nantucket HSP90s I've got in my black Les Paul. They definitely _sound_ like P90s to me - though how close they are to the real ones, I'm not sure!
If adding my personal experince with this demo: Alnico III sounds most naturally to me, especiall if it's used with lower wound pickups, while it tends to create a little bit too loose bass in higher wound ones. If you build-in an adjustable bass cut, especially for the neck pickup, you nevertheless get great sounds. I usually do and instead make bridge Tone to a master Tone eg. on a Les Paul. One advanatage of Alnico III is, that you can screw the pickups - or at least the screws - much closer to the strings, as it is the weakest magnet. As an all-round solution I'd choose Alnico IV, sounds most balanced to me, no noticable bass, mid, treble domination. Alnico II can sound nice, but is to mid-voiced usually for my taste, also has a tendency to create a too loose bass too - but this even an Alnico V PAF often does as neck pickup, while in direct comparison Alnico V sounds thinner, more mid-scooped, I would say. But of course the magnets alone are not everything, which makes a PAF sounding good or not.... Another simple thing to alter / improve your PAF sound is it, to raise the screws, so you get a narrower magnet field. Ritchie Blackmore eg. did this, when he still played an ES-335 and no Strat in times of Deep Purple MKI. Quite another, maybe additional thing is it, to turn around the neck pickup, so that the screws are further away from the neck. If you then also raise the screws, you also can reduce some bass muddiness and get some more transparency. But the effect still will be less noticeable than eg the one between a SH-1 and an SH-2 neck pickup. So I prefer using a bass-cut mostly instead. A different thing, to alter or improve a PAF sound is it, to check the real values of the potentiometers. They hardly will show exactly 500k, most probably everything between 480k and even 380k and this of course also affects the sound. Or think of some Epiphones, at least some years ago, which used 500k for Volume and 300k for Tone. Even if fully turned up, the pots will send a part of the signal to ground, the lower the value, the more. If you look for exact 500k, better install 1M pots and reduce them to the desired value with a parallel resistor (Pot input to ground). So you can fine-tune every pot exactly and also alter the character, if you are not happy with the results easily. Higher values means, higher resonance peak, lower values mean a more dampened, flatter one, but too high values also can sound too thin and too shrill, so the "perfect" values also depends on the complete guitar construction, the used woods and hardware too. So sometimes 500k can be the right coice, sometimes it maybe is not, also depending on the sounds, you are looking for. Nice comparison!
I tired the Wizz recently but they were too bright a touch thin for my tastes. They had A4 Mags. Maybe that was it. I have never gotten on with A4 and more often then not don't like A5 . I have tried some A5 sets I have tried but usually I don't. I do love the old short A5 gibson patent sticker pickups though short A5s are a different animal then lomg A5. Short A5 have a little more midrange compared to long A5 and its lack of mids that turn me off of long A5. I am an A2 and A3 fan . Un oriented A5 is nice mid ground between A2 and A5 .
AC2 is most rounded in highs,most compressed.AC3 big in mids /upper mids,A4 tight & balanced with push in lower mids(makes sound darker than really is I suspect),A5 big lows and highs.No suprise here.Thx for demo.
Thank you. That is such a good video. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼What do you think is the best alnico in a brigde humbucker PAF of a tele? Snappy, articulate, dynamic? Greetings. You do it so good
How a pickup sounds depends on a lot of other factors beyond 'just' magnets - DC resistance, covers, pots, the guitar they're in, etc. So there is no 'Best' magnet; though in general I prefer A2 for most PAFs.
Nice video. Thanks. Just what I was looking for. I do wonder how much the stronger magnets in the neck pickup affect the strings and thereby tone. Maybe a followup with a single bridge humbucker guitar.
Alnico 5 for overdrive, altough they may be a bit too bright for a maple body guitar. For cleans, they all sound good. Alnico 3 seems to be a popular choice for Broadcaster inspired pups.
I think this is a great video. although, youtube compression doesnt do the sounds comparison any favors. Would love to hear all these in clean neck and mild break up, and full bridge mild distortion.
I thought alnico 4 sound nice but you did mention it is the flattest. Maybe hearing live and thru audio is different. Do u have a link for buying these magnet?
Super test. It is very interesting, and i concur with your analyzis. Spot on. And of course, something must not necessarily be better or worse, just different. For different applications. Personally i was really intrigued by the complexity of the tones out of the 3. But it lacked some output, as you said. What if ... Maybe a 3 and some other winding or whatever ? Could be a winner :) I mix n match myself, but im on the hunt 4 (!) some other combinations ;)
@@JoePerkinsMusic ahaaa 🤔 will check it out 😀 Checked the vid - Hmmm hard to say anthing of great value. They are different :) I liked the 3, better than the 5, but the 2 sounded nice also. The 4 fit the SG. Well... Now we know. Something. Interesting tests nonetheless. (Got to try again with my golden ears on, and the best headphones, vs stereo)
Surprisingly, the A5 was my least favorite overall. Some bits sounded great, but it seemed to lack any top-end sparkle and chime in the video. The A2 and A4 seemed the over all favorite. The A3 had a profile of a “more polite” A2 with a tad more clarity. The A4 seemed to not be as hard sounding as the A5, and it had the sparkle and chime of the A2. Which is good to know, since I have a set of Wizz A4’s waiting to go in a 335. The A2’s were pretty great in all positions! I’ve always enjoyed A2 and A3 in the neck (especially on lower wound pickups), and I’ve typically enjoyed A5’s in the bridge. My OX4 medium wind A4’s in my 335 have woken up with some height adjustments. Which has put me on the fence about putting in the Wizz for the moment! Everything is completely dependent on the guitar, winder, and etc! Ex. The Monty’s PAFs seem incredible in every video I’ve seen them in. And those have an A5 neck. Which never seems like a neck pickup “option” in my experiences.
Yep, it's completely dependent on every 'factor' of the pickups working together as a whole - the magnet choice is a big part of it, but DC resistance/coil offset/covers/no covers/carbon content of pole screws/etc all influence the tone too. And, as you say, it's very guitar specific too...the Monty's are my favourite pickups for thinlines :-)
This video confirms why I prefer A2 and A3 .Both A4 and A5 have top much low end for my tastes which is great if your playing heavier styles where you need a more firm low end .
Interesting! I guess those pickups will have been designed around the A2 magnets - the winding will be specced to make it sound good. 5 was my least favourite - I also didn't like the A5 humbuckers in a G&L I had - basically sound like strat pickups with more bass, which is fine but not what I wanted. This video came and the right time, been looking at a D'Angelico which has A4 Seymour Duncan Seth Lover pickups in. They sound good to me!
To my ears, the Ii was sweetest sounding, and what I most preferred. But III had an interesting, almost acoustic quality going on. There was something with IV and V that was hurting my ears when clean, but with drive that effect started diminishing. Perhaps at still higher gain, the II might seem to me to getting swallowed up a bit. I don't know how to identify what it is, a certain sort of spike at the front edge, that's a little traumatizing to my ears, with the V. And yet the more the drive, the less it was having that effect. From what I understand, issuing unoriented V can bring a much sweeter sound than regular V. I want to give that a try some day.
Spoke too soon. Found out you did that very comparison. I preferred the unoriented until the guitar volume got to 10, and suddenly something about the oriented started seeming to have a sound advantage.
Interesting to hear that each one does have its own character, though for my personal preference based on my age, my type of music genre, being a dad, a dog lover, a nature lover, tree hugger, a Lord of the Rings fan, or whichever that may or may not have an influence to my liking....im inclined to like ALNICO II more... because! i don't have to explain myself that's just reality that we all have our own difference lols!
Ah well @ 69yo... A5 has dropped in my books... but 3 neck & 4 have caught my attention... maybe 2 neck... but I have a bridge wound p90 in middle on my tele. I'll have to do what you did with my bridge wound neck mule (tame it with A2) & swap A5 in p90 for a pair 4s first try. Jeeez
I ended up with p90s because even though a2 is a warm magnet and sounds even warmer on a humbucker on the low end, it has a high end lift that was kinda spikey. Always was hard to dial in the top end without losing definition on my humbucker guitars . Same with my a5 guitar with a humbucker , way too bright . The problem with humbuckers is the presence is mostly in the high end spike , but if you take that away your left with scooped sounding mids . A4 would probably be good or maybe a3 since they seem more balanced and less pokey. My p90 guitars don’t have a high end issue though with a5’s. Way easier to dial in and now high end and punch harmonica don’t rip through my ears . I am curious about a flatter response magnet though , the a3 and a4 interest me I just don’t know how hard it is to swap magnets
So, other than the fact that the magnets are numbered II, III, IV, V, what is the difference between them? The material they are made of or perhaps the strength of the magnetization? Or something else?
AlNiCo stands for Aluminium, Nickel & Cobalt, and the magnets have different ratios of those metals - that's what gives them their different properties & tones. I _believe_ Alnico III doesn't actually have any Cobalt in it, so technically that one is an AlNi magnet (I could be wrong on that though - need to double check!)
@@JoePerkinsMusic Ok, but how do you relate the magenet type to the sound type? Would you think I want my sound to be X so I want the pickup to be made with magnet type Y? And what is it about the magnet type that produces that type of sound?
@@spokes28 The strength of the magnetism comes from the ratio of materials. A pickup is a system, and how it sounds depends greatly on the ways many factors (wire type, winding pattern, offset between coils in humbuckers, baseplates or none on single coils, etc etc) are balanced out. But as in this video, with everything else remaining equal, the magnet type does have a noticeable effect on the tone - A2 tends to be the most mid-pushed, A3 is sweet but weak, A4 is probably the most balanced, and A5 is probably the boldest but also quite bright. But magnet choice is only one piece of the puzzle - many others factors in the pickup's design make a bigger difference.
@@JoePerkinsMusic Ok, thank you. That is what I was getting at. If I were choosing a pickup, what criteria would I use for choosing the magnet type. When all of the parts are considered, there can be so many variations it is mind boggling.
