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41-44 AWG: Who cares?

thiocyclist

thiocyclist

Sep 19, 2012
1,167
179
#1
I see people discuss different gauges of magnet wire used for guitar and bass pickups and there seems to be no obvious conclusion or consensus about the impact of choosing a thicker or thinner wire other than getting it to fit in the pickup housing. Thinner wires produce higher DCR so an equal number of turns produces less resistance if the wire is bigger, even the output may be similar. But does this choice also do anything to color the tone of the pickup? If so, it's worth considering. If not it's basically just an architectural consideration of fitting the coil in the pickup shell as long as the number of turns are held equal. Right?
 
#4
wire thickness and the thickness of the insulation totally affects the sound of the result, just like the other factors of the pickup design do.

i don't think there's all that much lack of consensus among pickup makers about that, the differences are clear and predictable.
 
#5
Uh?

Of course wire thickness is decisive. You have different capacitance, resistance and inductance, no matter how many winds you put on you can't get them to be the same. Plus coil size matters, too (in practice coils for pickups are usually same size even with different thickeness wire).

Try a SD SPB-1 and whatever the model number for the "hot for precision" is, which is awg44. The latter is called hot for a reason, and the only difference is the thinner wire.
 
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#6
Guys, you're entitled to your opinions but maybe you should explain what the practical effects of all these things are. So resistance may change (for example)-- so what? What's the practical impact? I am not hearing anything that is convincing me of WHAT is going to actually change with wire gauge.

The "hot for precision" example makes no sense. Thinner wire has more DC resistance per unit length so the same resistance of 44 AWG has less output than 42 AWG for example. So what makes that pickup hotter? It must in fact be overwound, and that's why they went with 44 AWG, to fit more wire on the bobbin. So that doesn't help at all.

walterw said:
i don't think there's all that much lack of consensus among pickup makers about that, the differences are clear and predictable.
Click to expand...

So if it's so obvious then what ARE the differences? That's what I'm asking in the OP.......
 
#8
You do realize that pickups are resonant circuits, right? Changing the wire gauge completely alters the behavior of the circuit. You would have to be deaf not to hear the tonal impact.

thiocyclist said:
??? What would ???
Click to expand...

He was talking about using thinner wire, since the winds would create a greater surface area for the dielectric (insulation) between the plates (conductors.) The capacitance of a coil appears parallel to the output, so high frequencies see a lower impedance load. This reduces highs.
 
#9
thiocyclist said:
Guys, you're entitled to your opinions but maybe you should explain what the practical effects of all these things are. So resistance may change (for example)-- so what? What's the practical impact? I am not hearing anything that is convincing me of WHAT is going to actually change with wire gauge.

The "hot for precision" example makes no sense. Thinner wire has more DC resistance per unit length so the same resistance of 44 AWG has less output than 42 AWG for example. So what makes that pickup hotter? It must in fact be overwound, and that's why they went with 44 AWG, to fit more wire on the bobbin. So that doesn't help at all.



So if it's so obvious then what ARE the differences? That's what I'm asking in the OP.......
Click to expand...

Output != resistance. As long as you believe that gibberish you are lost.

Basically the sound of a passive pickup is coming from the fact that it's a second order low pass filter with a resonance peak at the cutoff frequency formed by it's capacitance, inductance and resistance. It changes cutoff frequency and resonance peak like any other second-order lpf does, which you can read in any webpage about passive filters.

I also don't like the term "overwound" because in practice awg42, awg43 and awg44 are wound to about the same size coil. You have to do that so that you fill the right part of the magnetic field with coil. Putting on a bit more awg42 so that you go from 8 Kohm to 9 Kohm but staying awg42 is overwinding. Going to awg43 is not.
 
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#10
line6man said:
You do realize that pickups are resonant circuits, right? Changing the wire gauge completely alters the behavior of the circuit. You would have to be deaf not to hear the tonal impact.



He was talking about using thinner wire, since the winds would create a greater surface area for the dielectric (insulation) between the plates (conductors.) The capacitance of a coil appears parallel to the output, so high frequencies see a lower impedance load. This reduces highs.
Click to expand...

The first part of your response once again fails to really tell me anything at all, so yeah, thanks for that.

The second part of your answer actually helps me understand something! Thank you.
 
#11
uOpt said:
Output != resistance. As long as you believe that gibberish you are lost.

Basically the sound of a passive pickup is coming from the fact that it's a second order low pass filter with a resonance peak at the cutoff frequency formed by it's capacitance, inductance and resistance. It changes cutoff frequency and resonance peak like any other second-order lpf does, which you can read in any webpage about passive filters.

I also don't like the term "overwound" because in practice awg42, awg43 and awg44 are wound to about the same size coil. You have to do that so that you fill the right part of the magnetic field with coil. Putting on a bit more awg42 so that you go from 8 Kohm to 9 Kohm but staying awg42 is overwinding. Going to awg43 is not.
Click to expand...

I don't think res = out (wire gauge proves this), that comes more from number of turns... that was my point entirely, a thinner gauge of equal res will have less output so the hot pickup with thinner gauge in fact has to be overwound and the thinner wire is just to fit more wire in the pickup.
 
#14
john m said:
see title--- More turns would yield more parasitic capacitance.------- capacitors pass high frequencies, so more of the higher frequencies would get "dropped across the impedance of the coil"---- less highs in the output.
Click to expand...


So capacitance is directly related to resistance, so the more winds means more resistance and higher capacitance, resulting in more output and less high end. If I understand this correctly.

One thing does confuse me though. It would take more turns of a say 40awg to get the same resistance as 44awg. So what causes the differences in sound of a pickup wound to 8k using 40awg compared to a pickup wound to 8k using 44awg. Why would the capacitance of the pickup wound with 44awg be higher if there are considerably less turns to reach the same resistance?

I'm very interested in this thread because I am starting to wind my own pickups, and I want to gain a better understanding as to what makes them sound the way they sound. There is surprisingly little information on the internet about this subject once you get beyond the basics of pickup making.
 
#17
Jensby design said:
If 41-44 awg sounds the same to you
Click to expand...

For Pete's sake... they don't sound the same to me! I'm just looking for answers. Not sure why most people replying seem to not really understand my intentions in making this thread. I just want to know if there are any guidelines about how these gauges affect tone holding all else equal, or if it's not worth getting concerned about.

I have nowhere near the experience necessary to make that kind of discernment for myself, nor the ability to wind my own pickups and find out. So I'm simply asking for any experience on that matter from those who do have it. There's no sinister agenda here... I'm not trying to threaten anyone's precious beliefs...

:hiding: :scowl:
 
#18
xaxxat said:
http://music-electronics-forum.com/f11/
Click to expand...

Great forum... and here's a quote from one poster who uses 41 AWG wire to wind his bass pickups, instead of "regular" sizes:

"Don't pay too much attention to the conventional wisdom. You can make your pickups any old way that you want to."

This is why I was asking. I wanted to know if gauge was only an architectural consideration or if it had effects on the sound, and if it does, ***what are the effects*** (not just replying, "Hey dummy, don't you know electronics and stuff?"... that doesn't help)?

If I have some pickups made for me I want to know what gauge to use, I was trying to decide between 42, 43 and 44 AWG. Responses like from the guy above make me wonder if it really matters or if I'm wading into unfamiliar territory and will just make a stupid mistake that I regret.


EDIT: The more I dig into that forum the more confusing it gets. People talk about going to a thinner wire and getting brighter results with equal turns... this goes against the "parasitic capacitance" concept mentioned before, because others were saying thicker wire for more highs. Understand my confusion now?
 
#19
Here's my guess (this is just using my applied knowledge of electronics/physics, I am not an expert, so feel free to correct me :) )

Thinner wire = more turns in the same volume
More turns = Higher Capacitance

Capacitors have a property called reactance that is effectively their resistance to an AC signal, higher frequency = lower resistance.

I would therefore guess that a pickup with thinner wire would block more of the lower frequencies, making it brighter, and due to the way induction works, would be louder too.

Thinner wire has a higher resistance though, so if you were basing it on resistance of the coil, then a thicker gauge pickup would possibly sound brighter due to having more coils.

I know that there is inductance to take into account too, but I don't think that would increase as quickly as capacitance the way that a pickup is wound, it does however have the opposite effect to capacitative effects and would block more high frequencies.

So, despite not coming to a proper conclusion, that is my opinion :)
 
#20
I have a few questions that if answered directly should give a better idea as to how things work.

Over wound pickups are usually described as being hotter with more output.

Is this reason for this more resistance?

If so, two pickups with the same number of turns, one wound with 42 awg, and the other with 44 awg, the 44 awg pickup should be hotter because the resistance will be higher. Is this correct?

Also, it seems that the number of winds is directly related to the pickups capacitance. So if two pickups wound to the same resistance, lets say 8k, one using 42awg and the other 44awg, the 44 will obviously require less turns to get to that 8k number. So would the 44awg have less capacitance because of the fact it has fewer turns? and would it be brighter because of this?
 

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