Mini Humbucker of possible interest...

I have been fishing around for a bit more vintage style pickup for an ES-style bass, and when I saw these I almost fell out of my chair:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hot-Mini-Chr...0AAOSwBahVcYYU

What the heck was a Seymour Duncan stamp doing on the bottom of a cheap Asian pickup? I have heard of people using the real SD minis as a drop in replacement pickup on T-Bird basses, and know that they the real ones have bar magnets, so they are at least ballpark suitable for both bass and guitar.

So I bought couple, and they arrived today. Sure enough, one had the Seymour logo on the bottom, exactly like the pics on evilbay. The other did not have the logo. They both have four leads so you run the coils in serial, parallel, out of phase or single coil. Lots of possibilities. Both measured 7K. If you use two of these you'd want separate volume controls or a blend pot to get balanced output.

They don't have the high quality braided shield covering the leads that genuine SD's have...and although they use the same wire colors as SD, the colors don't seem to mean the same thing. On these the red and green wires are joined, and the black is joined to the uninsulated ground wire. On real SD's the white and black would be one coil and green and red the other, so green and red would not be connected.

I could not resist popping one open when it got here. Inside there were two coils wrapped around a bar, just like in the real ones. Under them was what appears to be an Alnico bar magnet.

They are more or less as advertised by the seller. That does not mean they are SDs, nor does it mean they will sound good in a bass. Still, at the price, if they sound like crappy, at least I won't have spent the house payment on them.

Will report as I learn more about them as I know more... but since my build is likely to go slow, may not have a sound check for some time to come.

Rich, price is very reasonable but you won't know the quality of the pickups till they are functioning.
As you say if they end up being rubbish you have only wasted about $20 for the pair

That's basically how I feel about them. The real SD's are over 6x the price. Wilkinsons are 3-4x the price. So for $20, if they don't sound good they'll make nice paperweights, and I'll probably put a set of these in it:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wilkinson-WM...cAAOSw5dNWmoTk

Not a bad price but still three times what a set of these cheap-o's cost me.

If the magnet is black its ceramic if its silver its alnico

good advice Tony, thought you were away, maybe you have wifi or mobile coverage where you are staying

thought you were a Saints fan mate, that's what happens when you upset DB hahah

Have 2bars on the phone wok I can keep my eye on DB
Been pouring rain allday so look like the wild man from Borneo mud from A2B

And just wait for Woks latest avatar update.......

I'm waiting for the avatar update DB, remember the deal we (I) made hahha

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tonyw

If the magnet is black its ceramic if its silver its alnico

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Attachment 9387

In that case it's ceramic. When I took a good look at the magnet, I also noticed that it was cracked.

Communicating my displeasure with the seller. $20 poorer, but a little wiser. Not a good alternative.

Will most likely spring for the Wilkinsons evenentually--unless others have a better idea?

So, since that was a bust... what do you folks think about these pickups? I see that they make a full sized bar HB, as well as a mini-HB for firebirds. Since this seems to be an Australian mfg, I am guessing some of you have had experience with them?

http://mrfabulous.com.au/index.php?r...ategory&path=3

I haven't tried Mr Fabulous' pickups, but the hardware he sells is cheap Chinese mystery metal cr@p. I'm guessing his pickups are also sourced from China somewhere.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fretworn

I haven't tried Mr Fabulous' pickups, but the hardware he sells is cheap Chinese mystery metal cr@p. I'm guessing his pickups are also sourced from China somewhere.

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Yep the pups are Chinese

Tony you seem to like your avatar you haven't changed it yet. Saw the Demons beat the Saints yesterday on TV !

Just got back from the bush and havent had time to do much of anything, and yeh the pfft NAB cup bring on round 1

haha nice one Tony, is that your metal detecting group ?

glad that roast chook avatar has gone, it makes me hungry every time I see it !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wokkaboy

haha nice one Tony, is that your metal detecting group ?

glad that roast chook avatar has gone, it makes me hungry every time I see it !

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haha yeh thats us, we go places others wont go and create havoc at events, including giving away gold to a kid trying to pan for hours. 2 of the group plonked about $100+ worth of nuggets in his pan, the kids face lit up like you wouldnt believe, his mum and dad were ecstatic. The Darkside are pretty well known on the goldfields lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tonyw

Yep the pups are Chinese

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In that case it ain't cheap or good. This post is, however, the last one I understood.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

So just some quick closure on this. Paypal finally ended the dispute with the seller who baited me with alnico and swtiched me with ceramic. They refunded my money. However, it took lots of back and forth with the seller and two amicable but lengthy calls with Paypal and one with Ebay.

So, none of you wise folk need it, but for my peace of mind, if you see a seller using either of these monikers avoid them like the plague:

2014thxues

MICHELLE TRADING CO., LIMITED

PayPal also gave me a "better yet": be careful about ANY Chinese sellers since they can ship cheap, but returns are an arm and a leg.

Not sure if this is a problem for you folks in Western Australia who may be close enough to throw the stupid things back to China (and hopefully bean my seller), but for the rest of the world... caveat emptor.

bad luck there fender, but i guess the moral is if it is cheap and comes from china, it is cheap and chinese....

lots of brand faking unfortunately... hope you find something cool and inexpensive

Thanks, Stan. We'll see. It's hard to buy for this thing. The slots are for full sized humbuckers. DiMarzio X2N-B's are still available for US$90+ each, even though the mfg has discontinued them. GFS has lipstick tube humbuckers for about $40, which is closer to my price range than the US$180 that SD wants for them. Or I can get an adapter ring for minis, and drop in Wilkinson minis for around US$40. The GFS's come in bridge and neck flavors, whereas the Wilkinsons come in just the one flavor. In the end, I may just go for the GFS's because they will at least look cool...

Then there's the old "throw good money after bad" approach: For around $30, I can get alnico II bar magnets to replace the center pieces...but that way lies madness...