[crawdad]

IF you are considering Bardens, be aware that they are bright pickups. I had a set that went to several guitars. In all guitars, they were bright, rather trebly and yes--punchy. Unfortunately, I could not dial out the harshness in the high end. I also lost the piano like twang in the low E string too, in every guitar I installed them in. Bummer for me.

There were things I liked about them--the power and the silence. The neck pickup alone is pretty nice overall. In the end, I gave up on them and moved on, like I did with EMG's, which also sounded good to me at first, but eventually had a sterile vibe that I couldn't get past. I greatly prefer the pickups that Dave Bubinski at Budz pickups has been winding for me, but I grew up with the vintage sound and to me it sounds better--Budz pickups give me that wonderful vibe.

While I am not totally anti-noiseless, due to certain environments where I have to have hum-canceling (lights, room wiring, running the guitar through comps and overdrives, etc), I much prefer a pickup that has a good tonal balance between low, mid and high frequencies and that certain greasy/twangy mojo that a single coil still does best.

If you listen to a bunch of later Danny Gatton CD's and you are in love with his tone, you might like the Bardens. Just remember, in the studio his tracks were probably compressed and EQ'd. Listen to some live stuff--that will get you closest. Turn your bright switch off or your presence control down, watch your treble knob and choose a warm amp, since all these things interact.

And yeah--though the output is like 3.7 k ohms, they are medium high output pickups. I don't know beans about the theory, but I know what I hear.