Can someone give me info on the pickups in my American Series Ash?

[tdu]

It's a 2003 American Series Ash Telecaster. I looked through the Fender website and found the current pickups in them are "Modern Vintage Tele® Single-Coil". Is that what was in them in 2003? If so does anyone know where I can find some specs on them?

I am considering replacing them because I find them to be a little 'sterile' sounding. I want to find something that are different specs....but I don't even know what the specs are

Thanks a ton.

[fndtele24]

I believe that they are the Delta Tone pickups. Wired as a standard 3-way with a detent on either the volume or tone pot. Which cuts the the pickups out of the circuit. You can roll the volume up to 10 and then there is the detent which acts like an 11. I could be wrong though.

[Tele Jr]

If your Tele is an American Series with the ash body, model 8402, then you have the Delta Tones. If you have the American Ash Telecaster, model 8502, then you would have the so called Modern Vintage pups. The MV's are very well liked, for my taste and style I consider them some of the best Fender has ever made, my only problem with them is they tend to be a bit noisy and need some additional shielding to use in some drastically noisy environments.

I have a good friend, Mark Sun, who has done a good job of shielding his 8502 and I plan on doing the same to mine.

[yegbert]

Originally Posted by fndtele24

...Wired as a standard 3-way with a detent on either the volume or tone pot. Which cuts the the pickups out of the circuit....

Noiseless?!

[tdu]

Originally Posted by Tele Jr

If your Tele is an American Series with the ash body, model 8402, then you have the Delta Tones. If you have the American Ash Telecaster, model 8502, then you would have the so called Modern Vintage pups. The MV's are very well liked, for my taste and style I consider them some of the best Fender has ever made, my only problem with them is they tend to be a bit noisy and need some additional shielding to use in some drastically noisy environments.

I have a good friend, Mark Sun, who has done a good job of shielding his 8502 and I plan on doing the same to mine.

Well I am pretty sure it's the American Series with the Ash body. I must have been looking at the wrong model on the website. I have pictures of it posted in another thread, but here is a photo. So I guess it probably has the Delta Tones.

[Tele Jr]

That's a beauty you have there. The so called Delta Tones are alnico 5 based pups that have decent output but are not considered overwound. The bridge pup is notable for not having the metal inductance plate like traditional Tele bridge pups do. They also spec out with plastic bobbins and have non cloth wrapped wires. I think they sound best when adusted up rather high just on the threshold of the so called compression zone, you can get them to sound almost like Tx Specials but without the articulation sucking overwinding that many find to be a downside of the Tx Specials and other overwound pups.

If you are looking to upgrade I would suggest trying to find a set of CS 63 Tele pups, imho a very good match for that guitar, also alnico 5 based but with a proper inductace plate, carbon fiber bobbins, and cloth wrapped wires. They are imho what the Delta Tones should be to begin with. I personally think the stock pups in there are ok but wish they would just charge $50 or $100 more or whatever and put in CS quality pups to begin with.

If you want more beef by all means consider the Tx Specials, I really like them myself, but there are so many other choices for sweet Tele pups out there you almost have to try a few sets yourself and get some experience with the different designs and how they sound to decide which ones are going to be best for you.

There are also other options to mod the modern bridge, like putting on a set of modern brass saddles from an 8502 or Am Dlx, with or without an 8502 style steel plate. The stock 8402 has a brass plate with steel saddles, the 8502 a steel plate with brass saddles, my favorite using the 8402 brass plate with 8502 brass saddles for an all brass bridge.