Alnico 2 vs Alnico 5 Comparison

[pmurph]

Hi everyone, got gutsy and swapped the A5 magnets in the pickups on an SG last night (2014 SGM) to A2s, and thought the findings might be interesting to share. I always see people comparing magnet specs like DCR, but I don't think I've ever seen an eq comparison like you'd see for speakers or microphones. So I recorded myself playing the exact same thing before and after the magnet swap (same strings, same pickup height, same cable, same settings, direct in), had the eq analyzer not decay at all and just take in all the peak readings. These are just the neck pickup, by the by. Here's how they overlaid:



The A2s were unsurprisingly less hot than the A5s, so the second image is me averaging them both closer together so it's a little easier to see the tonal differences. The raw eq analysis is the more jagged lines, and then the thicker lines are peak-to-peak averages so that we can get a better gist of the eq curves.

Alnico 5 notes:
Knowing what the pickups sounded like with the A5s (and what I was hoping to change), I was still a little surprised to see how much upper mid energy there was in them. They just got louder and louder up to 1K and then drop off pretty steeply. Sound wise, that translated (to my ears at least) as that sort of quackiness we sometimes talk about. Interestingly, that's a pretty similar eq curve to the mid hump in a Tube Screamer, though the screamer peak is closer to 700hz. It also made them have a bit less dimension. Very in-your-face but not super interesting or enveloping.

Alnico 2 notes:
So I've only had these in the ax for about 12 hours at this point, and while I will be playing a loud show at a big theater tonight (I'll follow up with how they managed), the immediate feeling was that they sounded much more natural and dynamic. This makes sense based on the famous Fletcher-Munson curve charts of perceived loudness (below), since the A2s clearly have more relative beef in the low end. Meaning they sound much more full frequency, almost acoustic by comparison. With driven playing, it's waaaayyy easier to get super dynamic picking performances out of these. The A5s felt kinda binary, they were either distorting or they weren't. The A2s give me a lot more colors to work with and there's a ton more play in them. The edge-of-breakup sound is very accessible now, whereas I struggled keeping it in that sweet spot before.



Final thoughts are that A2s are probably the better magnet overall–for a humbucker, at least. Though I did do a similar thing with a strat pickup a few years back and noticed a similar expansion in tone and dynamics. Definitely better for jazz and blues. I don't think A5s would be preferable for what we're all doing, particularly in an archtop. But even in general, I think the only place an A5 wouldn't be a downgrade would be something like a punk band. And even then, the more even (perceived) frequency response would probably sound better. I guess if you're pummeling your signal with fuzz or distortion or something then it might matter a lot less.

Pretty interesting stuff.

[Doctor Jeff]

Wow, they really don’t look that different on paper, at least when measured.

Based on what I’ve read, I’ve always thought that A2s were “mellower.” I posited that once on a thread, and got shot down by Patrick. “That’s a bunch of marketing BS.” LOL. I took it in stride, but I really wanted a clear explanation of why one might be preferred over the other.

Though nowadays I don’t even care. If I can make it sound decent, I play it. Not nearly as interested in the specifics of the electronics as I once was. Getting old I guess.

[JCat]

I got all kind of pickups and magnets and there are obviously many other aspects of pickup design that add to the equation, i.e magnet type is just a part of a broader context.

Stereotype generalization, e.g "A5 is good for punk" is misleading, especially since A5 was common several decades before the brief period of that genre.

For example; Magnet strength is an important parameter that depends on more things than just magnet type. And pickup output depends on more things than just magnet strength. And there's more to EQ-response, than just magnet type.

Anyway, when comparing EQ of A5 vs A2 in a given pickup (similar to the graph above) we would typically find that A2 got stronger relative Mids (alternatively lower relative Bass and Treble). Some of that could be compensated by pickup adjustment. Other than that, if this would be desirable or not depends on the rig; guitar, electronics, amp and speaker. I got a few amps from different eras and they respond differently to different pickups. Mid focused pickups are sometimes prone to distort (appreciated by a punk band perhaps?)

I personally avoid overly hot pickups for Jazz, but in general don't mind the treble roll off you'll get just by turning down guitar volume a few notches. Blanket statements like "A5 is good for rock", "A2 got singing sustain" etc, lead nowhere.

[Strat-itis]

Nice analysis. That's cool to see the eq comparison. I agree that A2 is pretty much the go-to for jazz. There's no reason to choose something else unless you have a specific reason. A5 can have benefits like it's more glossy.

I used to make hybrid double thick magnets including A2/A5 which combines the benefits of both!

A good alternative to A5 is A6 because it actually has some mids to it, but retains the round eq and direct response.

An alternative to A2 is A3. It's similarly wooly, but more snappy.

[JCat]

Examples:
I got a vintage archtop with a vintage P-90 (A5), vintage wiring 500k, that pairs beautifully with a vintage tweed amp of mine. The tone knob rolls off some volume, but otherwise got a good range. The volume knob doesn't roll off much treble. When paired with a "modern" tube amp brightness must be controlled, but now the guitar tone knob doesn't do much, meaning amp settings must be tweaked.

I got a solidbody with contemporary PAFs (A5, medium output), modern wiring 500k, that pairs great with my vintage amp with guitar tone fully opened. When plugged into a modern amp I use the tone controls of the guitar for EQ and I use the guitar volume control for texture.

I got another solidbody with PAFs (A5, hot output), modern wiring 500k, that is very dark sounding unless the volume and tone controls are fully turned on, meaning there will be distortion. I don't use this guitar for Jazz.

I got a 70s solidbody with Humbuckers (ceramic magnets, hot output) modern wiring, 300k that works surprisingly well for Jazz when guitar volume is rolled back 50%.

I got a semi with PAFs (A2, medium output), modern wiring, that is prone to distort unless guitar volume is rolled back a little. This guitar used to be muddy sounding until I rewired the harness. It wasn't a good match with my vintage amp for clean Jazz. It's much better now, but I prefer to set the pickups low and use a modern amp unless I want that super fat Jazz lead tone.

I got various Fender solid bodies with single coils, mostly A5 (like most of them always were), but also A3, medium to low output, some with vintage wiring, some with modern wiring, and they all work just like you would expect a traditional Fender solidbody; Some a bit darker, some a bit brighter, some without a tone knob! (no problem when plugged into a Tweed amp). Some even got vintage pole staggering...Pickup adjustment is important.

(By "modern amp" I refer to tube amps of contemporary design... which is a generalization. As pickups got hotter and hotter amps got brighter and brighter. Amps probably reached peak brightness sometime in the 80s/90s prior to the vintage hype, then things came back to "normal", and then possibly went too far in the other direction...I think that some digital amp modelers, computer gear and floorboard amps of today are bass heavy to the point it has become a problem.)

[GuyBoden]

Very good stuff.

Please, try the A3 magnets next.

[pmurph]

So did the gig: nice big room, pedal board with a compressor and some overdrives, loud band, notably bad monitor mix. The other guitar player said if he didn't know I had changed anything, he wouldn't have heard a difference. Just goes to show we probably put too much thought into all this. BUT, a friend of mine once said that part of the gear quest is psychological for the player. If you feel it's a better thing and it instills more confidence or comfort, that can help you get a better performance. It's not all for nought. But it's not the be all end all either, turns out. ¯\_(?)_/¯ Also, to my initial point, once things get rowdy enough and the stage crowded enough, a lot of the nuances disappear. Played clean I do still hear a lot more depth.

Stereotype generalization, e.g "A5 is good for punk" is misleading, especially since A5 was common several decades before the brief period of that genre.

Yeah, fair enough. Genre based designation isn't a super enlightened way to go about it. And I'll say I have noticed way more tonal variation from just the way I play than any single modification has ever produced. Also, punk is still very much around. Unless you're a purist and think it died with Sid Vicious.

Very good stuff.

Please, try the A3 magnets next.

I've got A3s in my archtop that have a glowing red target on their backs now...

Wow, they really don’t look that different on paper, at least when measured.

Based on what I’ve read, I’ve always thought that A2s were “mellower.” I posited that once on a thread, and got shot down by Patrick. “That’s a bunch of marketing BS.” LOL. I took it in stride, but I really wanted a clear explanation of why one might be preferred over the other.

Though nowadays I don’t even care. If I can make it sound decent, I play it. Not nearly as interested in the specifics of the electronics as I once was. Getting old I guess.

I mean, from what I just noticed I would say that's fair enough to say. They're definitely quieter, so there's that. But I also cranked up the height on them and they growled like crazy. And what was interesting about that was that the slight dip you see at 500-800hz on the A2 drifted up to 700-1000hz. Again, this isn't the most sterile test of all time, but every bit of info helps us make choices, which is nice I think.

[John A.]

In one of my guitars I went from A5 (8k neck / 9k bridge) to A2 (7k neck /8k bridge) and had kind of the opposite experience. Through an amp at home, and on before-and-after recordings I did with the same DAW plugin to try to document the difference it didn't seem like much of a difference between the two. But playing live in band situations the differences were much more apparent to me (and a big improvement), to a degree I found pretty surprising. The big caveat here is that this was swapping entire pickups with different DC resistance from different mfrs, not just magnets in the same pickup, and not a blind test. Also, no matter what differences I hear (or think I hear), there's no denying that it's still humbuckers in the same guitar played by the same person through the same gear, so it can't be THAT different in the grand scheme of things.

[jads57]

So I end up favoring a 7k Alnico 2 for the neck and a 8k Alnico 5 for the bridge in my Benedetto Bambino. I also have 4 conductor wire to be able to split them.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I love the data based approach and really appreciate your effort! I've posted many such analyses here and elsewhere, and they're useful up to a point. You have to put what you've done into perspective. You tried to play the "exact same thing" twice so you could identify and analyze diffrences between the two takes. What you didn't do is determine the consistency of your playing, which is critical. Record yourself playing the same passage multiple times and compare those takes. Determine the means and standard deviations of peak and average levels of multiple "identical" takes to see how close to identical they really are. Unless the variance in your playing is far less than the variance between the two things you're comparing, no objective comparison is possible.

I've posted many comparisons between pickups, strings, picks, modifications etc. I can report from sad experience that many of what I initially thought were differences between the objects being compared were actually just variance in my playing. Despite normalizing and level matching, it's pretty hard to come within even 2 or 3 dB at any given frequency just by trying to play consistently. Differences of only a few dB are as likely to have been driven by the player as by actual differences in the entities being compared. Hand position, pick or finger strokes, etc all influence both signal level and spectral content.

You're also drawing conclusions from a single sample. You need to run multiple takes of each arm of your study to establish the variance for each one. Only if the variance between the two is greater than the variance among multiple runs of each can you say that it's significant. Keep up the good work. Finding ways to measure what we think we hear is always ineresting and sometimes very surprising.

[pmurph]

Finding ways to measure what we think we hear is always ineresting and sometimes very surprising.

100% agree on all fronts. Like I said, this is far from completely sterile. It'd be interesting to figure out a way to do a frequency sweep that the pickups would respond to like they use to test speakers and mics. I know guitar pickups will respond to speakers, so maybe a flat, full frequency speaker at string distance? Either way, I think it's way overdue that we figure out how to test pickups in this way. It's standard for all other audio equipment and would help bust a few myths that we're all wading through all the time.