I have a friend that is very curious about the more popular electronics/pickup suites for bass. Does anyone have any links or suggestions about where I would find expanatory information. . .say on Sadowsky, Aguilar, Nordstrand, etc. I will send him to the individual sites, but maybe there are some other areas?
FWIW: good thing he's curious cause he's going to be doing a lot of searching if he wants answers. FAQ may have some sites but I know Paul doesn't encourage a posting of a collection of sites cause it involves turf battles over server space (cost money). The manufacturer is the place to go for specific information on their products. For general information he'll just have to search the topic of interest. 90% of such worthy links that would turn up in a google search have probably been posted on TB somewhere so a TB search is probably a good source. There's also probably more information of particular interest in TB threads than you'll find on the net. That's why I'm here and not there.
A preamp's just a low level amplifier, usually with some simple tone controls and battery powered. Best bet would be to hit the semiconductor manufacturer's sites and look into what's available, as well as audio sites like ESP to get some pointers. Most are simple single ended input, opamp buffers with a Baxandall NFB based EQ network. Pretty generic audio, not much different to what's in a lot of consumer electronics, in the broadest sense. An MC33078 is half decent sounding and has low enough current draw to give reasonable battery life.