I had a NOS set just like this. Packaged & wrapped up the exact same way. It may just be the lighting in the photos (or their age) but these look almost olive drab in color, VERY cool! GLWYS
I had a pair of Model J's in the early '80's complete with the PAF sticker on them, just as in the OP's pictures. I found the old pickup spec chart, and these early pickups may have a few more windings of wire on them compared to current production. Usually, a few more winds of wire translate to a tad more mids, a tad more growl, and a tad less highs. This seems to be the case comparing the set I have now to my memory of the set back then, but barely noticable, if at all, and nothing that boosting the mid knob on the amp or eq a half number can't fix. Back then (@1980) in a Guitar Player magazine shootout (before spinning off Bass Player magazine), they were compared to the rest of the J-pickups of the day, including real vintage J-pickups and some "boutique" pickups. The comments then were essentially: a little less top end than vintage, but in return they rocked the house, with the added bonus of noise elimination due to the split coil design. Those comments were why I bought a pair then for the real rosewood/light ash '75 J-bass I had then when one of the stock pickups opened up, as they were/are notorious for. Remember this was years before you could easily get a pickup repaired, rewound, or even get any customer service for a replacement part from Fender, especially where I lived in southwest Missouri, and despite that we had a Fender dealer where I lived. I think I even had to order the pickups by letter and money order from a place advertised in the back of that issue of Guitar Player magazine. My opinion is that in the years following, DiMarzio took a few winds off this model pickup to get a tad of the top end back, without losing the signature growl, possibly due to these shootout comments and others through the years. YMMV.
Hi "iiipopes"! Can you speak more to your statement "usually, a few more winds of wire translate to a tad more mids, a tad more growl, and a tad less highs..." from a technical standpoint?
Hi "iiipopes"! Can you speak more to your statement "usually, a few more winds of wire translate to a tad more mids, a tad more growl, and a tad less highs..." from a technical standpoint?
All else being equal, more turns of wire usually means more inductance, which lowers the resonant peak of the pickup, which to our ears is perceived as a boost in mids. More turns of wire also usually means more intra-coil capacitance, which our ears perceive as the top end is down slightly, just like turning your tone control down from 10 to 9, since a tone control is a capacitor on a potentiometer. As set forth above, if there is a difference in the windings from then until now, it is marginal and may or may not be noticable, depending on the instrument. The ash body of the bass I had, along with the thin fret board, of course, brought out a lot of highs, so the greater windings of the early version of the pickups actually were an "improvement" over stock for what I was doing then: college jazz band and some pick up gigs. Oh, BTW: I only sold that bass because the money frets wore out and there was nobody in the area at that time that could re-fret it. But I know where it is if I ever wanted to refresh my memory directly, record a track with it, etc. EDIT: Here you go: I found the original chart on line. Notice the tonal spectrum is T4 M5 B6, with @ 7.76 kohms' worth of wire on it and 150 millivolt output. Then notice on the current DiMarzio website, DiMarzio Model J™ | DiMarzio , that the advertised spec is T5.5 HM3.5 LM 4.5 B2.5, with almost a k's worth less wire, 6.82 kohms' worth of wire, with the same 150 millivolt output. That much less wire will make the difference in the advertised tonality of the pickups, especially in the treble and mids as we perceive it. I don't know about the newer bass response spec; to my ears, there is more bass response than listed on the new version of the pickup. But the chart and the listed differences in tonal response are consistent with what I remember. I hope this helps selling your pickups.
"All else being equal, more turns of wire usually means more inductance..." More turns of wire always means more inductance by definition . Nice, complete technical explanation sir. (you even touched on the parasitic capacitance in the winding) Well done.
