Vol. Knob
Registered: March 2003
Location: Kansas City, MO
Posts: 567
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Review Date: Wed January 31, 2007
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $85.00
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Clear, transparent, cool looking.
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Cons:
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None.
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The Guitar: A mid 90’s MIJ Fender ’69 Thinline RI, my #1 ax for 11 years. Mahogony body, one piece maple neck (refretted with jumbos), Mann Made compensated brass sadles, 4 way toggle, stock (but rewound) neck pickup, this is the 4th bridge pickup for this ax, past have been the original, a custom overwind job on the original, a Little ’59 (great for strat, not for tele), and MIM standard (I had to get that lil 59 out fast and cheap).
Plugged Into: I play it through a ‘69 Teisco Checkmate 15 (vox AC15 wannabe) loaded with an altec 4258H, a’72 Pro Reverb (blackfaced, of course) loaded with Emminance Cannibas Rex speakers, a Crate Vintage Club 50 with a 15 inch speaker clean and dirty channels, and through a 50’s Newcomb PA head (5E3) running a 2x12 with an old Utah and Eminance GB128H or an alnico 15 from an organ. The only pedal use worth mentioning is a Tube Screamer or a wah (Dunlop Hendrix or EH Q-tron). I notice a massive difference, easily noticed with each amp in all my usual settings. I had to change nothing, though I dial around a lot, depending on mood, room and song needs.
The pickup I removed was just a standard el-cheapo from a Mexican tele. It didnt have a copper baseplate like a tele bridge pickup is supposted to have. It was all plastic except for the copper wire that encircled the Alnico V bars. It did it's job, but now it must join the others in my dead and/or no longer needed pickup box.
Enough on my setup, on to the review….
Looks: The Antiquity is a sight to behold. It's got a rough looking copper baseplate, signed by Seymour. It's Alnico V Rods look rough, staggered a little with the D and G poles raised a little higher. There is wax drenched cotton twine wrapped around it, with magnet dust flaked into the waxy winds. And the top cover is rougher looking but not overdone. It looks aged, heck, the mounting screws were flathead and the threads were rusted! How about that, I thought only old Chevy’s came with original factory rust! The wires were cloth covered.
Sounds: You'd have to hear it for yourself. Guitars are unique, each with their own tonal quirks, and mine being a semi-hollow mahogony body has added lows and airy mids. My thinline has always sounded essentially the same to my ears, regardless of pickup. Each pickup transferred that sound in it’s own way. And I find the Antiquity II really brings forward all the tones in the right spaces. I hear more of it than before, the sounds between the sounds, if that makes any sense. It expresses loads of those tele highs, but not at the sacrifice of the mid and lower registers.
I like the attention to every last detail that Seymour put into this pickup. This guitar is mine, there is no other like it, I’ve modified it, played it to death/repaired it back to life several times, damaged it, fixed it, spilled beer on it, thrown it, and logged hundreds of hours on it. The Antiquity II is the first pickup to bring it’s voice forward in the way I need it.
I’m sure there are better pickups out there, but this is the best sounding, and looking, one that’s been in my guitar. It very well could be the last bridge pickup (I wanna do an Antiquity II for neck eventually). Until I fall victim to someone elses marketing mojo hype anyways. But I’ve got other guitars to tweak around on, so it could take a while.
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I have a few bands:
7 Mysteries
Zerababyl
Inflammatory Rhetoric
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