Delano JC 5 HE thread

I ordered a Delano JC 5 HE from Brian at BestBassGear.com about three days ago and it showed up yesterday afternoon so I'll be giving this blade pickup a spin soon. Thought I'd put a thread up for it so that there'll be some info on these from me and hopefully others too. Delano looks like a company that's made some great choices for design and has enough configs to satisfy varying needs and preferences. Anyway, I like blades in general and because they sidestep spacing issues; the JC 5 HE also is a side-by-side coil instead of a stack which in my experience has some tonal benefits.

Kinda looking at the Sonar with a passive high-cut option as a nice simple low-draw high performance preamp that could possibly do as well on 9 volts as most do on 18 volts, one that has enough tweakabilty to be useful but not so much as to draw me away from using passive 66.6666666% of the time ; }

BestBassGear.com has responded quickly to my emails and seems to have a handle on service - reflected by a great website with plenty of useful info and products.

Should be hearing from me soon on SGD's EMG-sized neo blade pickups as well. I like what DavidRavenMoon's been working at and am confident he's pushing boundaries enough to maybe get me to do some routing ; }

Initial response on the JC 5 HE (neck position, using bridge version to fill the longer route my Carvin LB-75 fretless has):

Wowsers! - thassa fine meatball! Clarity, articulation, detail, depth, no preamp needed to get plenty of output. It'll be awhile before I understand all the implications of the change as regards my EQ etc, but I think I'm sold on the default it provides, and the flexibility it's most likely capable of.

Really digging this pickup in passive mode as I put more playing time in. Good output and balance tone on all strings. Just a quick tonal impression, but this twin-inline-coil noiseless design seems to embody an idealized blend of what I like in a J and P pickups. I suppose the side-by-side coils hjave something to do with that bit of P-bass goodness I'm hearing there, and the J-form factor placement making it seem like a hybrid of the two.

emjazz, c'mon in, the water is f-i-i-ine : }