Yes, sir. The plural of "iota" is "iotas."
Smitty's musing for the day:
Have you ever noticed, the term "iota" is usually part of the phrase, "not one iota" or something similar?
I mean, I can think of situations where I would care at least one iota. Maybe I wouldn't care two or three iotas...but I may care at least one iota.
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Okay...back to the topic...sorta...
I pretty much agree with you on this, Tony.
I can't say I don't pay ~any~ attention to things like magnets and DC resistance, but the pickup is really the sum of the parts. The whole DC resistance thing is particularly deceptive. A pickup's DC resistance value is only part of the story, and is really only meaningful in context. Trying to judge a pickup by DC resistance is a little like trying to determine an engine's performance only by it's displacement. It can give you some idea of what to expect, but there's more that goes into the total picture.
But, at the end the day, what the pickup actually does is what matters. But, I have no complaints with either Gibson or Fender pickups. I can't say they are "the best" because I haven't sampled every pickup made by every guitar builder. Even then, all I could reasonably say is that they are the best...for me. Someone else who has different tastes may not share that opinion.
Also, I don't have just one "sound." I incorporate multiple sounds into what I do. In one song I may play a Strat clean and optimize some nice percussive quack. In another song, it may be my Jackson cranked as much as possible. In another song, it may be somewhere in the middle with my SG with 57 Classics. I really don't try to think of the "best" pickup. I try to think of what makes the sound I want for a particular purpose.
Good points...and yes, DC resistance is only one tool used in pickup evaluation, as you have pointed out. I got a real swift education on this topic when I started having my own pickups wound.
Resonant peaks, inductance, milivolt output, wire diameter, number of turns, scatter winding, magnet length and construction, polarity, induced magnet sag, potting methods...its really mind boggling.
Certainly this is a matter of personal taste and a matter of great subjectivity. In fact, these two factors make the pickup industry bigger in terms of annual revenue than guitar sales.
However, I have discovered that I am most pleased when I have something made to my specifications, rather than use a given guitar or pickup that rolls off the conveyor belt.
Ok...my goal, if you will, is to obtain the biggest, thickest sound on each individual string, along with a very rich overdrive sound. This doesn't happen at less than 17.5k - a benchmark I established by testing several pickups in my 1987 Squirecaster...most notably the Suhr Doug Aldrich set, but when I really started evaluating the guitarists whose tone I always admired, the results were always the same - 16k +.
When I put 24.75" necks on twin-humbucker custom guitars, I always use a Alinco II, double wax potted PAF clones in the 7.5k/8.0k range. This is traditional and safe. A guitar setup like this will work well in both country or classic rock.
The old PAF's are a good starting point.
Aside from all of these things, my quest is also for the quietest possible signal. After evaluating a lot of pickups, I discovered that my three sets of Gibson's (2 sets of 490's and a set of 57 classics) made the most noise of all and the DiMarzio's were by far the quietest of the factory made pickups....when tested in the same guitar/cable/amp combination.
When you listen to your tracks being played back, you sometimes hear things your ear misses...
