EMG J pups: 9 or 18 volt?

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by walterw

i've never heard of such a thing.

I never heard of it either. I've seen some really early EMGs when I worked at American showster, and even own an old Overlend EMG mini humbucker.



I'll mention this again, that if you are using the original EMG J (not the X), it will sound better if you run it at 18v, and use 100k volume and tone pots. Its output impedance is too high to work well with 25k pots.

[JIO]

Originally Posted by walterw

you did?

i've never heard of such a thing.

The pu's had a micro switch on them and that never fooled with. Actually I'm not sure exactly what it did.

[walterw]

you might be thinking of the duncan actives from back in the day, which had little DIP switches right on the face of the pickups.

they just changed the EQ curve of the pickups.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by JIO

The pu's had a micro switch on them and that never fooled with. Actually I'm not sure exactly what it did.

Those were Duncan "Active EQ" bass pickups, not EMGs. They were great pickups. Now they are known as Pro-Active series, without the switches.

The switches changed the resonant peak in the pickup and the low end frequency.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support..._have_the_old/

[JIO]

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

Those were Duncan "Active EQ" bass pickups, not EMGs. They were great pickups. Now they are known as Pro-Active series, without the switches.

The switches changed the resonant peak in the pickup and the low end frequency.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support..._have_the_old/

... it was a while ago - thanks for clearing that up guys

[nervous]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Made no difference whatsoever.

I will agree with this. I have also used EMG pickups and pre's in basses for the past 30 years, at both 9V and 18V and for all practical purposes see no differences. It's like so many things, tuners, bridges, etc. where the differences are so small or subtle to be be of any consequence in any real world situation you'll find yourself in. Do what makes you happy.