I'll give a quick overview here of the three vesions and the intent of each...
4.2 - This is as close as we could come to an early Music Man pickup with the shorter magnets. I analyzed a real one and made our pickup match it as much as possible. If you want an original Music Man tone, this is as close as we can get. It is a traditional hum-bucking pickup and can be run in series, or parallel, which is the way they were run in OEM installations. A single coil setting will be true single coil and have 60 cycle hum like any other single coil.
4.3 - This is an alnico version of the Sterling pickup. It's got three coils in a pyramid configuration (the third coil is underneath the center of the other two coils). It is intended as a replacement ONLY. We do not offer wiring support for any other installation. If you want to work out some options on your own that is fine, but don't ask us how you install it with a three way, four way, five way... etc. switch. We simply don't have time to work up custom wiring diagrams on a regular basis. Also, it should be noted that this pickup requires a special rout for inatallation because of the third coil hanging off the bottom.
4.4 - This is the pickup you want if you'd like to have a silent single coil setting on your bass and you don't have an original Musi Man bass. This will also work best in Lakland installations where you want to maintain the original switching for the MM pickup. This pickup has four coils arranged in two linear hum cancelling rows, one set for each row of magnets. You can run it series, parallel, or split it to the front and/or rear coils and maintain silent operation in all modes. It's the most versatile pickup we make in this style. It does sacrafice a little high end because of the extra coil wire required for the hum-cancelling design.
So, to sum up...
If you want the old school no compromise Music Man tone and don't place a priority on single coil mode- get the 4.2.
If you want the old school Music Man tone in your Sterling bass - get the 4.3.
If you need to have a silent single coil setting and don't mind or want the slight compromise in high end response (darker sound) - get the 4.4.
Hope that helps.
(I think I need to post this on my website too...
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