Expensive Tele Pups That Are Actually Worth It?

I tried "expensive" boutique stuff and it were always the Duncans that stayed in my Teles...

 

IME getting the right pickups is more dependent on understanding what we want and how a change in the pickup changes the sound we hear from the amp.

There are a number of ways to get a functional understanding, and one is to let a pickup maker do the understanding part, while only doing the asking part ourselves.
Dollars have no tone, but the makers we give the dollars to might be able to help us get what we want.

IMO buying a random set from one maker after another hoping the makers name will be the secret to our tone is a huge waste.

But if we buy from a maker and get a sound that's not quite there, we can then ask that maker what they suggest based on how we hear that pickup.
It's comparatively easy for a maker to give us a little more or a little less treble/ clarity/ midrange/ bass/ fatness/ or whatever we tell them we want more or less of.

But expecting a brand to be "better" rather than targeting the specific issues with the pickups we already have is shooting in the dark.
Fralin used to be willing to unwind some turns of wire for free if we bought pickups and they were a little too hot/ dark/ fat/ middy/ bassy.

Buyers who prefer to pay top dollar have that right, but hopefully they get some custom service for their money.
The idea that paying more without any due diligence is where IMO buyers get it wrong.
The right pickup is like the right size shoe, not the right price shoe in any random size.

 

they're good, but not worth the ridiculous money at all...when you see that a Duncan costs half of it...and it doesn't get better than a Duncan...

 

Having read through most of this thread, I understand using custom wound pickups for a guitar that is not branded, or rather the bigger names like Gibson, Fender mostly. But I've always thought that the reason that I play Fenders is that they sound like Fender's, and when I pick up a Gibson, it's because I wanted it to sound like a Gibson. So for those guitars I let them be what they'll be, and when I buy them, I already like the way they sound. Now... having said that, my RI guitars are my favorite sounding..... I'd bet the pickups are more expensive to make for those models than the "standard" models. So once again, what do I know?

 

I think my Lollars were very much worth the money. I absolutely love them. They are very different from the stock ceramic pickups that were in my guitar, so it's very possible I could have been just as happy with some of the cheaper options.

One of the reasons I got them was I could actually try them in a store in a Telecaster that wasn't too far off mine in a lot of ways. A lot of the cheaper stuff other than Fender is not that easy to try out in the store.

I think it's kind of silly for someone to throw shade at someone for buying a $200 set of pickups. You have no idea what else the person spent or what their income level is. The person throwing the shade might have 5 Teles and the guy buying the $200 pickups might have 1 Tele. If you only have 1 why not go crazy? We are all just different. I am happy with 1, and I go crazy making sure it's setup absolutely perfect the way I like it. I know other people who think that's silly. They'd rather have 5-10. But I could go through their 5-10 and decide I don't like any of them as much as mine, so what's the point of having 5-10 guitars! And both of us are totally fine and happy.

That said in the future if I buy another Tele I'll be spending more money up front and it won't be a MIM Standard with Hot Ceramics, so I doubt I'll be changing pickups from the Stock Fender ones. If I was to go buy another Tele today and had to replace my guitar I'd buy an American Pro or maybe an Ultra and I doubt I would change a single thing on it other than setup and adjusting the pickups. If I wasn't replacing mine I'd be looking at a Deluxe or Thinline with Humbuckers. Even if I was to go get a MIM Player I wouldn't change the pickups. This was really specific in my case to not liking the old MIM Standard Ceramics. And I paid so little for my MIM Standard it still cost less than a brand new Player today even after adding up all the costs for the Lollar pickups and all that.

 

Sticking $500 worth of pickups into a guitar that costs $500 is no different than putting $3K wheels and tires on a $5000 used car. The law of diminishing returns is as harsh as the law of gravity when you're operating an aircraft: you *always* have sufficient fuel to reach the site of the crash.

But it all comes down to what you like, and nobody can tell you differently. Ya buys the ticket and ya takes the ride.

 

You've just got to believe your own ears on all this stuff.

I definitely prefer AlNiCo over Ceramic, and, when playing them in a 'blind' test to compare them on identical Teles ... think I'd be able to tell the difference.

But ... Give me 2 identical Teles with AlNiCo Vs in them, one has say Tonerider TRT1s and the other BareKnuckle 55s .... not so sure I could say which was the £60 set and which the £160 one!

 

I'm very pleased with the Fred Stuart Black Guard pickup in my Esquire. I don't know if that qualifies as "Expensive"; it was more than Fender CS but it's only one pickup so that takes out some of the sting. Buying pickups for a Strat could be more painful...

 

That's a tough one, it's really down to the player/amp/settings/actual guitar and style.
I've gone through a bunch of Don Mare tele pickups, Curtis Novak, Fender, Vanzandt, etc and while they all sound a bit different, i'd say they are all within 10% of each other and can be similar with EQ and playing style.

Right now I have a Mexican Fender Tele totally stock including pickups and while they are hotter then a true vintage pickup they work just fine for what I need.

Unless there is a thing you need out of a pickup (e.g. less wolf'yness or better clarity or less treble) you could look at alternatives, but again these days most stock pickups for Fender, Gibson, etc are pretty good even on their mid Tier guitars. The pressure to change pickups is real
In the golden age guitarist just used what they had.

 

Never assume, it isn't the amp. Or the speaker. Or honestly, the hands and heart of who is playing that moment.

Some guys here, hear a certain sound in their head, and they go on a pickup quest to try to find that certain sound. I'm pretty much the other way around. If the sound is cool, I find a way to embrace it and incorporate it into what I'm doing.

 

Sometimes when I hear a recording of my playing, I catch myself thinking, "Man, that tone was perfect. I wonder what I was set at there?" But I often can't hear it in the moment. Maybe I should start doing sound tests with my eyes closed.

P.S. As for boutique pickups, my TVJones Classic (bridge in Gretsch 5120) and Fralin Vintage Hots (MIA strat) sound great to my ears. But, then again, so do the stock pickups that came with my G&L ASAT Tribute and MIJ E-series Squier.

 

You're looking at it from the perspective of the collector/guy who thinks this is an investment and not a tool to enjoy & make music with. People who just want a guitar they love don't care about resale value.

This whole thing is semi-silly anyway. Fender has a $500 set of pickups. Their normal mass produced ones top out at $160 a set. $220 or so to get Lollars or Fralins vs the Fenders is no big deal. Skip buying a pedal. Drink a couple fewer cases of beer.

Also the $3k wheels on the car is not a good analogy. No one can tell from visuals what pickups are in your guitar, you're not buying any particular pickups to impress people from a distance. The equivalent in the guitar world to $3k wheels on a car is more like fancy inlays or binding that do nothing to make the guitar play better or sound better. We literally call both the $3k wheels & the inlays & bindings bling.

 

This is what 'kicking that bucket' looks like.

You may do better shopping with your own ears and budget.

 

I once picked up a super cheap guitar sitting on a stand in a music store just to noodle around on while I was waiting for a salesman to get back to me. An Ibanez GIO. $179.00. Within a minute or so I realized the darn thing had about the fastest neck I'd ever played on. Low action. No fret buzz. Played like butter. Comfortable. Lightweight. I plugged it in. The pair of humbuckers sounded horrible to my ears. A pair of cheap Ibanez pups that should have been drowned at birth. Yet ..... other than the pickups, I'd have paid half a grand or more for a player like that. So I took the guitar to the counter, added two Seymour Duncan pickups to the order, (an AlNiCoII for the neck and a Custom Custom for the bridge), and a push pull pot for splitting the pickups for single coil tone. $179.00 for the axe. $168.00 for the pickups and maybe $10.00 or $12.00 dollars for the pot. About $358.00 + tax for the whole thing. This happened in 2002. Today I own many guitars than cost over $2500.00 to purchase.. Yet ....... I still own that Ibanez GIO and it's still near the top of the list for pure neck speed. I figure it's one in a million. A wonderful unplanned accident. I've never found another.

Sometimes it's worth it.

 

First, define "expensive"

 

My MIM Tele came with Tex Mex pickups. I replaced them with Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups, and I constantly get complements on my guitar, and have modded two others to be like mine.

 

I've not necessarily found that price is a particularly good indicator of how much I will like a given piece of gear, pickups or otherwise. In terms of pickups, I've found the Fender Custom Shop offerings to be consistently pleasing and you can often get a really good deal on them. I've really enjoyed (at different times) Texas Specials, '69s, and '51 Nocasters. I was not a fan of the N3 Noiseless. I feel like I got good value from a set of Rio Grand Vintage Tallboys for my Strat-like Object. I've always been pleased with my choices from Gibson USA and TV Jones, as well. On the other hand, I didn't particularly bond with my Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Pearly Gates bridge for Tele and felt a little let down for the money. That's probably because it didn't match the sound in my head and no correlation to actual quality of components or assembly. The only other pickup that I didn't really like was a True Velvet but it was extremely affordable and I got all my money back when I sold it.

Good look in your quest!

 

Don Mare and some of the other winders have a reputation for being able to custom wind a pickup based on your description of what you want, and get it right. That's worth more than you'd pay for a comparable off-the-shelf standard pickup. For sure.

I have a Don Mare set (Supersport/Stelly) $180.00 used. I have a Fender OV set $50.00 used. I like them both. I have an Equire a luthier friend built out of unidentifiable parts bin leftovers (hey, I've got enough odds and ends to make a whole guitar). Pickup cannot be identified, somebody paid to have it replaced, but it sounds good to me.