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Has Gretsch been lying to us for over a decade?

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#346
mrperkolator said:
I stand by my statement. I've had to relocate INSULATED wires due to high levels of EMF causing equipment malfunction. This wasn't guitars, but electricity is electricity and the same formulas apply.

Edit: I deleted part that was wrong. Not because I'm trying to hide it, but because I dont want to get corrected for the next 15 pages...
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It is likely often done that way for ease of manufacturing, but electrically and magnetically there's no reason for the extra insulator to be there. Magnetic fields and electric currents don't care where insulators are.
 
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#348
I bought mine for $450 from Dave's Guitars. It was so nice, but when I found this out, I traded it at Guitar Center. I was pissed. I bought a 2nd one a year later knowing full well I would be changing out the ultra cheap pots, wiring, and ppassed. Put in Seymour Duncan SSB-4s and a Bartolini preamp and she is one of the sweetest sounding basses in the world.

But companies that blatantly lie to promote their products should be called out.
20211106_210130.jpg
 
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#349
Rod Barchetta said:
I would like to point out a similar issue with a higher end bass. The PRS Kingfisher SE advertises humbucker pickups. You even see the giant poles on both rows, but they are just single coil pickups with low output and tons of noise. And this is a nice bass: through body neck, 24 frets, bird inlays.

And people have paid nearly a $1000 only to find this out later.
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Really!?!? It’s to the point that I’m never buying a bass until lobster does a deep dive!
 
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#350
It would be possible to hide the coil interconnects inside the coil so that a stacked dual humbucker would look like a single coil from the outside. You really need to uncoil the thing to be sure this isn't the case. Seems like that possibility should have been checked before making accusations of lying and fraud. Until you unwind one or use something like the x-ray analysis to confirm there are no internal connections, you can't be 100% sure.

Also others have stated that the plates in the middle may not be magnets but may just be magnetized steel that carry the field up from the bar magnets at the bottom. I would try to avoid any erroneous statements in the videos, otherwise you lose a little bit of credibility. But personally I tend to hedge in situations like this, saying "I believe xyz" or "As far as I can tell blah blah blah." Just a bit of unrequested and maybe unwanted advice.
 
#352
mrperkolator said:
At least the Kingfisher SE has standard EMG35 sized pickups. It sucks to have to replace, but at least it's easy.
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Sure, but is it standard industry practice for companies to lie about which pick up they put in their bases? Again, like the Gretch if people knew what they were getting they could decide to buy it or not. I am a basement bass player who occasionally plays with friends and my son so I’m definitely no expert on anything. I also really hate extra noise and would be so pissed if I drove myself crazy trying to solve a problem that turned out to be unsolvable!
 
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#353
Kevin Doyle said:
Sure, but is it standard industry practice for companies to lie about which pick up they put in their bases? Again, like the Gretch if people knew what they were getting they could decide to buy it or not. I am a basement bass player who occasionally plays with friends and my son so I’m definitely no expert on anything. I also really hate extra noise and would be so pissed if I drove myself crazy trying to solve a problem that turned out to be unsolvable!
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I'm there with you. I loathe noise. I think any dishonesty like this is horrid. I'm just comparing that the Kingfisher has standard pickup size. My G2220 does not, so I've got very few choices in fixing it.
 
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#354
So just to clarify as maybe I missed it, there is evidence that these are not stacked humbuckers? This would likely not be visible with the magnetic field paper. I probably should just watch the video. Yeah, doing that now.
 
#355
deff said:
So just to clarify as maybe I missed it, there is evidence that these are not stacked humbuckers? This would likely not be visible with the magnetic field paper. I probably should just watch the video. Yeah, doing that now.
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Lobster took it apart. There's one coil.

And it has two leads. A humbucker would need more than two leads.
 
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#356
mcgreivey said:
Lobster took it apart. There's oone coil.

And it has two leads. A humbucker would need more than two leads.
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Unless the other lead connections are inside the assembly.

Only 2 leads need to come out for connection to the circuit, and those are the 2 leads shown in the videos/pictures. It doesn't mean there aren't internal lead connections that haven't been seen or found.
 
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#357
This whole saga reminds me of when I was shopping for my Supro Huntington III. Some of the promotional stuff said the pickups were "Gold Foil Humbuckers" or "humbucking pickups" which didn't sound right to me - some places said they were single-coil fridge magnet pups, some sources said they were mini-humbuckers, it was pretty confusing. But reading the entire product description on the Supro website clarified that these are single coil pups, inside a mini-humbucker housing, and the middle pickup is reverse wound to achieve humbucking properties. Made perfect sense once I read it, and nobody could accuse Supro of misleading anybody, even though some of the promotional literature was a little inconsistent.
 
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#358
deff said:
So just to clarify as maybe I missed it, there is evidence that these are not stacked humbuckers? This would likely not be visible with the magnetic field paper. I probably should just watch the video. Yeah, doing that now.
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I've worked with stacked humbuckers before (check out my Sire D5 mod video, we install the Seymour Duncan stacked Dusty Hill signature pickup), and they always have a visible division between the two coils AND wires coming off of both coils. You'll either see them wired in series internally, or you'll have access to all four conductors (two + and two -).
 
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#359
LowEndLobster said:
I've worked with stacked humbuckers before (check out my Sire D5 mod video, we install the Seymour Duncan stacked Dusty Hill signature pickup), and they always have a visible division between the two coils AND wires coming off of both coils. You'll either see them wired in series internally, or you'll have access to all four conductors (two + and two -).
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Lobster, do you know anything about the PRS Kingfisher pick ups?
 
#360
Kevin Doyle said:
Lobster, do you know anything about the PRS Kingfisher pick ups?
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I do not. I'll have to review one at some point. They've been on my list, and I'm kind of kicking myself for not snagging one a year or so ago when you could have em all day for $600ish or so.
 
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