BzzzKill - New Single Coil Hum Canceling Device

[Jarick]

As for others I have tried Zexcoil, Dimarzio cruisers and choppers, Wilde micro coil, Wilde blades, Wilde stacked, Fender hot noiseless (the old ones from the Beck Strat), Fender Ultra Noiseless, another fender noiseless like gen 3, mojotone quiet coil, probably others I’m forgetting too.

I haven’t tied Lace Sensors, EMG, Fluence, Fralin split blades, Kinman, or Joe Barden. Been close to trying the EMG a couple times though.

But after all that carousel I’d be more interested in trying a drop in to reduce noise rather than a noiseless pickup.

 

[Chocol8]

Someone named "quarterblackstrat" on TOP got one and seems rather unimpressed. Reporting high end loss which is expected. I would stick to the illitch, Suhr, or a DIY copy.

 

[FuzzyAce]

I mostly live on neck or neck and middle with some bridge. Rarely on middle only or middle and bridge. If it’s HSS I live on bridge way more. I could probably be just fine with a humbucker bridge and single coil neck.

My experience with areas is pretty extensive,..generally they shave off a decent amount of high end and low end and get to be somewhat compressed on the attack. Single pickups can sound pretty decent but mixed pickups compound the dull high end. I have tried using higher value pots too and they doesn’t really fix the issue but it can improve.

The Tele versions sound better than Strat but I have the following:

Area 67
Area 58
Area 61
Injector neck
Injector bridge
Virtual Solo
Area T neck
Area T bridge
Area T hot bridge
Area T 615 bridge

I think the 58 and 61 tend to sound best as they have good output and are less dark. The 67 can sound kind of odd in the high end even though it’s brighter and has less lows. But they all still sound a bit band passed compared to a real single coil which has more fundamental and extended highs.

Some low output true single coils have too much extended high end for me and also lack thickness in the low end. I like 6-6.5k alnico 5 Strat singles and for Teles I like under 6k 42ga neck (like a Strat) with 8-8.5k 42ga bridge both alnico 5. Although I have tried and dug alnico 2 Strat as well especially a hot one in the bridge. But generally I like the bigger low end of Alnico 5 for singles.

I do like the area 58s a lot. Never tried the 67. I'm not really shooting for the vintage, truest single coil tone though. I like the stacked singles, and judge them on case by case basis with each guitar. My favorite true single is a lipstick though.
I have:
area 58s
area t neck and hot bridge
Injector neck and bridge
virtual vintage 54 pro (more recently got and love it)
virtual vintage heavy blues 2
Also have a number of their blade singles.
Really enjoy all of them, and I normally use a 500K volume pot.
None are duds in my book.

 

[Sascha Franck]

But after all that carousel I’d be more interested in trying a drop in to reduce noise rather than a noiseless pickup.

I don't have tried as much noiseless pseudo single coils as you, but it's still been a plenty (OBLs, Kent Armstrong, Anderson, Kinman, Areas, Choppers, Cool/Hot Rails, Fender), and while I actually like some of them quite a bit once we're heading into dirt territory (and amazingly enough, the pretty "mid-bitey" Kinman AVN69 gave me a the best faux jazz sound in the Anderson), none of them came close to the chime of real single coils, so that's where I'm at as well.
It's just that I really only need a true single coil sound for the neck position, I'm fine with all other positions, so installing a 200 bucks thing just to silence one pickup seems a bit overkill.

 

[JasonE]

As for others I have tried Zexcoil, Dimarzio cruisers and choppers, Wilde micro coil, Wilde blades, Wilde stacked, Fender hot noiseless (the old ones from the Beck Strat), Fender Ultra Noiseless, another fender noiseless like gen 3, mojotone quiet coil, probably others I’m forgetting too.

I haven’t tied Lace Sensors, EMG, Fluence, Fralin split blades, Kinman, or Joe Barden. Been close to trying the EMG a couple times though.

But after all that carousel I’d be more interested in trying a drop in to reduce noise rather than a noiseless pickup.

I think the Fralin Split Blade has merit. It essentially works the same way the pickup in a P Bass works. It is the closest thing to a single coil, two half coils.