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SBMM Ray 34 series or parallel wiring
- Thread starter ics1974
- Start date
Well I emailed Sterling by Music Man and found out both the Ray4 and Ray34 are wired in series.
Here are the wiring diagrams they sent me.
Here are the wiring diagrams they sent me.
The way it's set up currently, can the Ray34 be rewired in parallel pretty easily? It looks like the older Ray34s were wired in parallel.
Well how about that?
That explains why I always perceived the Ray34 as more low- and mid-heavy.
In addition it doesn’t have that awful trebly clank, that the pre-2018 Ernie Ball Stingrays had. I always attributed that to the SBMM pre-amp, not the pickup.
If you take two identical pickups, with identically wound coils, and wire one in series, and the other in parallel, they will sound quite different - the series one will hav 4 times the resistance and inductance - overall, 4 x the impedance of the parallel wired one, and yes, the will sound quite different. On the other hand, if you wind them differently (fewer turns of bigger gauge wire on the series one, more turns of finer wire on the parallel one), you can get them to the same output level and impedance if you want, despite that fact that one is series connected, and the other parallel.
What really matters is not so much how the coils are connected to each other, but what the impedance of your pickup is. With a good pickup designer, the desired impedance can be done with either parallel or series wiring.
What really matters is not so much how the coils are connected to each other, but what the impedance of your pickup is. With a good pickup designer, the desired impedance can be done with either parallel or series wiring.
This is pretty surprising, I had heard that the cheapest line they do were wired in series, but when they’re charging 1k plus for a stingray style bass, why would they not wire it in parallel? It’s not like it’s cheaper to wire it in series is it?
I'm not a Stingray kind of player, but if I were paying 1k for a bass with humbucking pups, I would want to have a switch to let me have series OR parallel at will (and maybe single coil mode too)... but that's just me.
Beats me. But it is surprising, although I applaud the decision, as the Ray34 in general has a rounder and more applicable tone as apposed to it’s sizzly, US siblings.
It’s sooo much easier to tame in a mix, while still being very present and clear,
Yep, the Ray34 is series. I had one and honestly enjoyed its tone more than my US Ray. Eventually, I came around and started enjoying the US Ray just as much, but the series wound pickups can be very nice for folks who want a more traditional tone in a StingRay styled package.
To be honest, I think the issue is a lot of people would wonder why they should pay more than double for a US StingRay if the Ray34 sounded the same in addition to looking just as good & feeling as great as it does.
Whether most like the sound or not, people buy a Ray34 to get the StingRay sound & probably think they're getting it until they plug it in, since none of this series vs parallel wiring info is openly available either on Sterling's site or any seller.
Kinda feels like they're nerfing it on purposes, tbh.
