Seymour Duncan 5 String Stack® Jazz Bass Pickup

While I don’t have experience with the 5-string version, I have the Hot Stack Jazz bridge pickup on my PJ. I gotta say I don’t like it. It’s pretty weak-sounding and I just wish the poles were staggered; the string-to-string balance is poor.
If I were to get another humcanceling set, I would go with a linear one, not a stacked one. While linear humcanceling still doesn’t sound like a true single coil, it sounds more open and organic. And the DCR is kept low. My Hot Stack Jazz is wound to 25k.

Hope this helps.

 

I will say that linear humbucking for 5 strings is not completely hum cancelling. The unequal sizes of the split makes it so that the hum is never truly gone. This is why Sadowsky moved to stacked pickups.

 

The Seymour Duncan Classic Stack is used in both 4-string and 5-string applications. I have the neck version as a bridge pickup in a 4-string project bass. The best way to describe it is "polite." The problem with the bridge version is that it is so overwound in order to get decent output that it loses some top end, the very reason for having a J-bridge pickup in the first place.

I also agree that a split setup for a 5-string is inherently flawed because it is difficult to get the coils balanced.

If you would consider going active, then the EMG is a viable alternative. Yes, it is also a stack, but because it is internally active, the individual coils have their outputs summed electronically rather than physically as a passive stacked humbucker. But that would involve also going active on the P-position pickup, with the same inherent difficulties in getting balanced coils, as well as the cost factor: a good active system can cost more than the bass it is installed on.

Measure the bridge pickup, not only for overall length, but the mounting screw and string spacings as well. If the SD bridge classic stack is not the right tone, the neck version may be adaptable, depending on the string spacing of the bridge and the tone of the P-position pickup.

 

I just installed a set of Apollo linear hum-cancelling pickups into my fretless 5. They are pretty dead quiet. If they hum because of unequal length coils, I certainly can’t hear it, not even with headphones...



pole pieces are staggered (radius) and output is great. These replaced a set of QP’s and output is almost the same, maybe 5% less on the Apollo’s, with about 25% more open clarity than the QP’s. My new favorite SD pickups.