Ceri,

The pickup manufacturer I implied is Larry DiMarzio.

I only met Kent Armstrong once when he was a child as he happened to be with his father, Dan, whom I knew.

Unfortunately, I have a limited knowledge about Kent's pickups. Although I've heard several of them at one time or the other, to be perfectly honest with you, I really wasn't paying attention nor did anything really jump out at me. This is in NO way to be considered disparaging; I was simply focused on other things during these recitals.

I would not expect to be speaking with Kent any time soon as I really have no reason to. Should I speak to Larry or Wendy Davis, Larry's wife and the, "WD" in WD Products, I'll certainly pass along your praise for Ben.

As to your statement, "...tell us more...", what would you like to know?

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You dig?

Ah-ha! How interesting...

Hey, you choose! Howsabout all your inside information regarding DiMarzio pickups for starters?

Wait, let me pull up a comfy chair and pour myself a whisky... There. OK, shoot!

...Of course, I'm being silly. But honestly, yours are amongst the posts I always read with interest and nods of agreement. Keep at it, please!

Cheers man - C

I really do appreciate your interest in my literary diarrhea.

As to the inside scoop at DiMarzio, there really is none, believe it or not. The one thing in my opinion which keeps them leaps and bounds above every one else is the fact that they do not try to, "reinvent the wheel" like so many others try to do. Rather, they simply try to make it the best it can be. Sure, they have a huge reputation for shredder and heavy metal stuff but a lot of their products are for vintage type applications as well. The biggest difference is that so many companies try to duplicate the original pickups to original specs, etc. whereas DiMarzio for the most part will employ modern technology and technique to not only accomplish the same end but to cherry pick and reproduce the finest qualities of the vintage stuff while refining or eliminating the the not so desirable ones. Guaranteed, they make a perfect pickup (or pickup set) for everyone out there. I'm living proof of this with my Virtual Vintage/Area series combos

DiMarzio runs a tight shop and virtually all his workers are truly dedicated; QC is relentless.

As you can see, although I am very familiar with Duncans, Fenders, EMGs, etc. I'm a, "dyed in the wool" DiMarzio enthusiast and because of this, I really don't pay close attention to other manufacturers stuff. I believe, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

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You dig?

And lets face facts. You gotta be a smart bunny to copyright the PAF name before gibson got chance to take it.

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No no and no

Well, well. I'm ashamed to admit I don't own any DiMarzio pickups. Now I have a strong hunger to investigate them more closely than hitherto and try some out for myself.

So there you are: in the fullness of time another set sold. Tell him: he owes you a drink!

Should just make deep apologies to russianracehorse for completely hijacking his thread.

C'mon everyone! Let's hear some opinions on those Golden Age pickups!

Cheers - C

No harm done. I haven't bought the pickups yet, so any info is helpful to me.

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

You should give Rio Grande pickups a try. They are a bit more inexpensive than other aftermarket pups. They also sound amazing.
My favs are the vintage tallboy, and the muy grande.

Hey russianracehorse, just wondering if you went with the Golden Age pickups and what you think of them. I'm curious if the single coils are as good as the humbuckers.

To chime in on DiMarzio pickups, I have only had 1 guitar with em. it was a les paul copy that was stolen It sounded so good, no one would believe it wasn't a real les Paul. In fact almost everyone I played with liked it much better than my buddies real LP. I credit the pickups with the majority of that sound. been over a decade easy, still miss that guitar.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Hey edzio--thanks for checking up. No, I haven't made a purchase yet. User atolleter raised a good point about the lack of sound samples on the various sites that sell pickups. Without being able to actually hear an audio cut, I feel like I'm buying a pig in a poke. I just don't know that it's satisfactory for StewMac to tell me that these pickups deliver "vintage" tone, when their understanding of that may be different from mine. So after looking at the link provided by atolleter and at various YouTube videos, I think I'm inclining toward the Fender Custom Shop '54 pickups. These seem closest to the tone I'm chasing, and you can get them for about $135 on eBay. I probably won't actually buy anything until April or so, but I wanted to get some opinions here to aid my decision. I'm still willing to reconsider if I can hear some audio samples of the Golden Age (or other brands).

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

I bought a set of Stewmac Golden Age Pickups #5424 single coils for my MIM standard Strat. I didn't like the original ceramic pickups that the guitar came with, I thought they sounded to bright and harsh for my taste. I installed the Golden Age pickups in the Strat and it improved the sound alot. The sound is warmer and alot more Strat like. I don't know what sound your looking for, but as for me I like the vintage Strat tones and the best pickups I found for that tone at the moment are the Fender '57/'62 pickups that come on the American Vintage '57 Strat. For the price, the Stewmac pickups are excellent and will improve your sound, but they still don't compare to the tones I get from to my '57 Strat. Hope this helps.

Thank you, levesque. That helps a great deal. Combined with edzio's feedback on the humbuckers, your recommendation makes me want to keep the Golden Age pickups on my list. I'm upgrading a Squier Standard Strat, and although it's a great little guitar, it doesn't make sense to spend a ton of money on modifications. That's why I had looked into Golden Age to begin with. Any chance of you maybe loading a video to YouTube to give us a taste?

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

It's a tough decision. It's hard to really know what pickups sound like until they're in your guitar. I ultimately wound up with the Golden Ages after many recommendations and weighing the cost.

To answer the original question here...
I have used both the single coil and humbucker Golden Age pickups from Stew/Mac and found them to be excellent in tone and value. The 'buckers sound alot like PAF's (sorry Larry), and the single coils remind me of the Custom Shop Fat 50's.
I highly recommend them.

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I grew up in the "Dark Ages" of gear, when a '63 Strat was just an old guitar!

Stratobastard, you don't deserve your own name. That's exactly the kind of information I was hoping to get. I will definitely keep the Golden Age pickups on my A-list. Thanks to all for your input!

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.