They are HD, but not hifi, if that makes sense. I refuse to make clips because my recording capabilities aren't up to snuff to show the tone or differences. I can just tell that I love these pickups and I can't imagine me playing something else. A grand for these? worth it. These are perhaps the only guitars that didn't need electronic tweaks of new pickups or whatever after they were build.
Seymour Duncan Zephyr Silvers
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makemyfunkthepfunk
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i think theres a good bit of why i cant get along with other musicians here in this thread. its always black and white thinking. scott grove style "myth busting" and what not. im not skeptical of the sound, im curious as to how it sounds and would like to try it before i buy it or at least have a return policy with something that expensive. not that id buy these particular pickups before hearing them
makemyfunkthepfunk
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just watched a video of them, ill stick with fralins, lollars, bare knuckles, and david allen pickups i think.
sixstringsamurai
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I came across an article recently where guys are Cryogenically "treating" Pup Coils Before assembly.
Whole lot of horse shite and snake oil out there kids.
:doh:
It MAY make a difference, but not one I am willing to shell out for.
:laughing11:
Whole lot of horse shite and snake oil out there kids.
:doh:
It MAY make a difference, but not one I am willing to shell out for.
:laughing11:
Jumble Jumble
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They're Duncans, so by default they have a 21-day exchange policy.
Cagey
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sixstringsamurai said:
I'm not sure where the idea that freezing pickups to death came from, but it's gotta be bullshit. Cryogenic treatment of metals is an expensive hardening process; it does nothing for conductivity. If they were made of superconductors that need that temperature to function, that would be one thing, but that would be impractical in the extreme for guitar pickups. Then, that doesn't consider the cost of doing such a thing, which to be done properly would be outrageously expensive and would result in pickups that have the life expectancy of a defective fruitfly.
Sounds good, though. Especially if you're a marketing weenie. You get to use big, mysterious words, like "cryogenic", which are extremely helpful in extracting dollars from people's wallets if they can be convinced it's a Good Thing. Not too hard to do with guitar players, if you can somehow work the words "sustain", "string separation", "tone" and "clarity" into the sales pitch. Guaranteed to elicit responses such as "OMFG! I gotta have it! I don't care what it costs!" and "I just got one yesterday and it changed my life!" Yeah, right. Wait 4 or 5 days. It'll be on eBay.
It's like "oxygen-free copper". Like that's special. It's only all copper smelted since the middle ages. "oxygen-free" copper is about as special as "skin-covered humans" or "wet water".
sixstringsamurai
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Cagey said:
:toothy12: :laughing3: :laughing11: :laughing7:
TonyFlyingSquirrel
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Paying for Relic'd guitars and Cryo-pickups is like throwing away a down payment on a house.
sixstringsamurai
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Right?TonyFlyingSquirrel said:
:rock-on:
clearerphish
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Updown said:I believe @Orpheo has two free sets of Zephyr Humbuckers in two of his MANY LP's.migetkotla said:
Well I mean ..... he still had to work for them. Dose write-ups etc for SD.
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=21258.msg314683#msg314683
If he doesn't see this post, PM him.
Probably not to much talk about them, because of the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Man they would have to be able to .......... wash the dishes & walk the dog ........ for that price :icon_biggrin:
I always enjoy seeing Orpheo come across the SD site. I feel like an "insider" lol.
Jumble Jumble
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I'm regularly on there too. I feel sure there must be more...
about the cryogenics, well there has long been unprovable audiophile myths about grain alignment and crystalline structure making coils better. and in a "pure" metal cryo treatment has an effect on neither. it effects internal stresses. in an alloyed metal during heat treatment you are trying to capture the hardening alloy into a solid solution and some metals like iron and titanium changes the space lattice structure during this process and on cooling you can also trap a space lattice that is not stable at room temperature that can cause cracks. after heat treatment you can cryo treat the metal as an alternative to subsequent heat treatment to force the unstable metal into a more stable lattice structure. it's a post heat treatment process. it's a post heat treatment process but there is no hardening element in pure silver and i don't know of the space lattice changing at different temperatures in silver. there is pretty much just annealing and stress relieving which are more or less the same things and will remove any work hardening from bending the wire. cryo treatment does not anneal or stress relieve silver.
as far as the pole pieces go they are essentially the core of an inductor. and the magnetic properties of iron and other ferromagnetic alloys do change with the condition of the metal. a hard steel has permanence but a soft steel does not, some alloys don't have ferro-magnetism annealed but do hardened. it may also influence the permeability. these things absolutely influence the tone but that doesn't mean you can use cryo treatment to positively influence tone, you can use heat treatment to get a desired effect though, and some would argue the cryo treatment helps but i'm not sure too many people could describe how, it's more a theoretical thing since i'm not sure it's well researched with results available to the public. i'm not gonna go as far as to assume the people at SD know this. i'm sure it was based in unsupported audiophile nonsense and it doesn't say if the coils wire was cryo treated or the pole pieces or both.
then again none of that means they don't sound good.
i used to check out the sd site, and got a lot of wiring ideas from there as well as the understanding of how to wire different pickups together for phase and/or noise rejection. it's a very good place to find out how to wire and repair wiring. i don't go any more because i don't feel it has anything left to offer me. but it is pretty cool there are people here writing reviews over there.
as far as the pole pieces go they are essentially the core of an inductor. and the magnetic properties of iron and other ferromagnetic alloys do change with the condition of the metal. a hard steel has permanence but a soft steel does not, some alloys don't have ferro-magnetism annealed but do hardened. it may also influence the permeability. these things absolutely influence the tone but that doesn't mean you can use cryo treatment to positively influence tone, you can use heat treatment to get a desired effect though, and some would argue the cryo treatment helps but i'm not sure too many people could describe how, it's more a theoretical thing since i'm not sure it's well researched with results available to the public. i'm not gonna go as far as to assume the people at SD know this. i'm sure it was based in unsupported audiophile nonsense and it doesn't say if the coils wire was cryo treated or the pole pieces or both.
then again none of that means they don't sound good.
i used to check out the sd site, and got a lot of wiring ideas from there as well as the understanding of how to wire different pickups together for phase and/or noise rejection. it's a very good place to find out how to wire and repair wiring. i don't go any more because i don't feel it has anything left to offer me. but it is pretty cool there are people here writing reviews over there.
I have indeed two sets of zephyrs and I truly love them. I don't know why, but I do. I didn't have to pay for them so I am kinda unbiassed. The difference is very audible between a regular set of pickups and the zephyrs. They're not super-hot, perse, but they do work a kind of magic that can't be reproduced on an other instrument.
About the cryogenic treatment. The guys at SD won't do something unless they feel it makes a difference. My time with them has proven me that much. Cryo treatment on metal conductors does make a difference in the crystalline structure but not just that. It locks it in place, more or less. Like a waxpotting on an atomic level, I'd say. But that's just part speculation part knowledge. I'm not a metallurgist, I don't really know what goes on. The only thing I do know is that the cryo treatment makes the pickup feel a bit tighter yet more clear as well. Again, if it didn't matter, Duncan wouldn't do it. The zephyrs were created to make the most awesome pickup. Not to make the most expensive pickup.
It is true that I have a lot of les pauls. Thirty, to be exact. But it's just a few of them that I play on a regular basis. The zephyr-equipped guitars are among the cream of the crop.
About the cryogenic treatment. The guys at SD won't do something unless they feel it makes a difference. My time with them has proven me that much. Cryo treatment on metal conductors does make a difference in the crystalline structure but not just that. It locks it in place, more or less. Like a waxpotting on an atomic level, I'd say. But that's just part speculation part knowledge. I'm not a metallurgist, I don't really know what goes on. The only thing I do know is that the cryo treatment makes the pickup feel a bit tighter yet more clear as well. Again, if it didn't matter, Duncan wouldn't do it. The zephyrs were created to make the most awesome pickup. Not to make the most expensive pickup.
It is true that I have a lot of les pauls. Thirty, to be exact. But it's just a few of them that I play on a regular basis. The zephyr-equipped guitars are among the cream of the crop.
A final remark about the tone.
not everything can be captured in recording per se. The feel of a pickup is very subjective but equally important to the tone. There's something that I can't describe (nor care to describe) that's going on that makes the feel different. There's a different kind of string pull of the pickups or whatever that makes them feel more slinky, more fluid, more relaxed and more precise. It's like using the right screwdriver on the right screw. Or maybe a better analogy, the right glass for the right wine. You don't serve a Sancerre in a big bowl nor would you serve a Chateau Montus (heavy red wine from the Madiran region in France) in a small port glass. You 'feel' that something's wrong and you, as a layman, don't know what or why. It's a feeling. And that's what's going on with the zephyrs too.
It's like the zephyrs 'know' what you want to play and the note(s) come out a tad easier and a touch 'sooner'. Of course, that's not true but they 'track' your playing so tightly and accurately... That's the feeling-part that cannot be described. There are some clips online but they show you the sound. Not the feel, and the feel is equally important as the tone when it comes to the zephyrs.
To show you how good they are, Slash has a few of them installed in guitars he uses on tour and he plays those on a very regular basis. Slash loves these zephyrs.
not everything can be captured in recording per se. The feel of a pickup is very subjective but equally important to the tone. There's something that I can't describe (nor care to describe) that's going on that makes the feel different. There's a different kind of string pull of the pickups or whatever that makes them feel more slinky, more fluid, more relaxed and more precise. It's like using the right screwdriver on the right screw. Or maybe a better analogy, the right glass for the right wine. You don't serve a Sancerre in a big bowl nor would you serve a Chateau Montus (heavy red wine from the Madiran region in France) in a small port glass. You 'feel' that something's wrong and you, as a layman, don't know what or why. It's a feeling. And that's what's going on with the zephyrs too.
It's like the zephyrs 'know' what you want to play and the note(s) come out a tad easier and a touch 'sooner'. Of course, that's not true but they 'track' your playing so tightly and accurately... That's the feeling-part that cannot be described. There are some clips online but they show you the sound. Not the feel, and the feel is equally important as the tone when it comes to the zephyrs.
To show you how good they are, Slash has a few of them installed in guitars he uses on tour and he plays those on a very regular basis. Slash loves these zephyrs.
Jumble Jumble
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That's a new one.
sixstringsamurai
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Orpheo said:
Better stay away from MLP, those guys over there are animals when it come to the search "Slash Tone" :doh:
Glass?
GLASS?
Hell, by the time I get the screw top off, I'm ready to chug 'er straight from the bottle. Unless it's one a them that gots the friggin' CORK in it and you have to smash the neck off on a rock or tree or something. Ist hell to dring around them glass spikes so I like to pour it off into an old spackle bucket, or your hat or something (don't use the acoustic guitar, they sound DRUNK when they're soggy!) :laughing3: :laughing7: :laughing8: :laughing7: :laughing3:
Oh and always let sombody else dring that last backwash if ist kinda crunchy too. :icon_thumright:
backwash? wackbosh? worshbog? barkschwartz. wartzch? woggums
Jumble Jumble
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I guess technically you do pay for them anyway, with labour.
However, I doubt SD would take kindly to you coming here and saying they were awful. Not that I thiink you're lying - I have a project planned that's going to get Zephyrs too.
However, I doubt SD would take kindly to you coming here and saying they were awful. Not that I thiink you're lying - I have a project planned that's going to get Zephyrs too.
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