Quote Originally Posted by Oldjazzman
Oh, Francesco, I forgot to mention, that you can also turn your guitar's volume knob down just a bit. My vol control is at 8.5-9.

Richard-H: Some amps MAY be set flat with 5-5-5, but the traditional Fender, Marshall and many other amps have such a tonestack, that 1-5-1 or such setting is much better.

I am quite new here, and maybe there have been many discussions on this topic. I just want to say, that I try to think these sound things "scientifically". I mean that trying many different pickups is often just a waste of money and time. Realizing, that a guitar pickup, control pots, caps and cables together are a complex electrical cirquit having a "transfer function" of it's own, was a very important moment for me.

While it's true that most amp's tone stacks notch out the middle, the reason why they build their tone stacks that way is that it compensates for the fact that guitar pickups generally have way too much middle. Fender & Marshall did this very intentionally - it's one of the reasons that their amps are so well loved.