Down and dirty bobbin tests-take a listen

[frankfalbo]

Due to the recent discussions about different materials and tests, I thought it would be fun to post the most down and dirty, (and basically almost useless) test. Many thought the bobbin material was probably the least of the four contributors to the sonic difference of the Zephyr Silver pickups, and I can't disagree. But that said, there are definite audible differences here.

I hope I don't regret posting this, let's not let it spiral down into derogatory remarks about the test method or the sound of a particular material. I do not post these clips as if to say that this is how we do bobbin tests, or that it is definitive. It is just for fun.

These were just quick exploratory tests, not final arbiters, and I can't post anything subsequent even if I wanted to.You can discuss what you like and dislike, but I can not reveal the materials, nor can I say which are materials that we use. Its just fun to hear the difference bobbin materials can make, assuming first that you can hear a difference, and second that you believe the difference is big enough to matter.

These are bridge pickups, the coils and all the other materials are identical. Another key factor missing is which one of these clips is the control. In other words, I have them ranked best to worst, but if you don't agree with the order, that's okay because you don't know what we were shooting for. They are also unpotted, so at the end there's tapping and knocking to listen for some inherently microphonic properties. Its fun to listen to the differences between tone and microphonic qualities.

One philosophy of this test is to "nuke" these clips using immediate attack/release, heavy compression and expansion to "force" the differences to the top. The sound is unnatural and that's another reason you can't really listen for best and worst because again there is no benchmark. The combination of compression and expansion also provides a floor/ceiling governor for the microphonics to break through, thus removing some guesswork. The clips were made with the Mesa MKV clean channel, one direct signal and two mics, then all three signals were time aligned. There are milliseconds between the direct signal, the close mic, and the mid-field mic that have phase implications. Time alignment is my best solution for a listening reference test.

In all its just a fun listening test, and worse, they're mp3's! Don't take it too seriously.

Music page of Basic tests - MP3 music page on SoundClick

[big_teee]

I didn't hear a huge difference, especially on little laptop speakers.
However I thought #4 to be the clearest, and sounded best to me.
Thanks, for the test, and I hope as Frank does, that everyone keeps the debate positive!
Rock On!

[Mike Sulzer]

Due to the recent discussions about different materials and tests, I thought it would be fun.....

Thanks, Frank. Fun it is. They are all distinctly different on good head phones. I hear the differences best when a single wound string dominates the sound. The differences tend to fuzz out on some chords. I went through the list several times to see if it might just be different frequency responses. Not so. There is a more coherent string sound on 4 an 5, and some of that on 3. Is that always better? I think I would prefer 2 for some kinds of music. It has a kind of familiar sound! Number 1 is not acceptable to me also.

[JGundry]

Through my iMac speakers I could not hear a difference but that is not really a surprise. I should do it again with headphones.

A couple of questions. Where all of the bobbins wound from the same spool of wire and did you mic the wire to make sure it kept the same diameter through the spool?

[frankfalbo]

Nah we just used whatever we had lying around. I'm not even sure it was all the same gauge. (sorry couldn't help myself)

Kidding aside I said these coils are the same. We're confident in our ability to produce multiple equal coils. The man who wound these recently celebrated his 30th anniversary with the company. Rather than slip into other plausible variables, for the sake of these clips it's best if you consider the bobbin material alone. If you must, overlay your degree of faith in our ability to produce equal coils as percentage of plausible variance due to those factors, and listen past that percentage.

Because I mentioned Zephyrs I'll say these tests are not related. This is copper wire with no Zephyr features. And no tricks either. I'm not going to come back later with a "gotcha" surprise. It is what it is.

[JGundry]

Frank I'm not questioning your ability to produce a consistent product or trying to play gotcha with the test. But just for the sake of testing, making sure the bobbins are wound from the same spool is really pretty much required if you are talking about comparing very subtle tonal differences between bobbin material. PE wire can vary quite a bit in diameter through the spool. Poly wire less so but there is still a bit of variable. You just really need to take that variable out of the mix if this is just a bobbin material test. Add to the fact that you are testing these in a humbucker you are potentially upping this tolerance variable within the spool by a factor of two if the coils are wound from different spools. If it where me I would make sure all bobbins were wound from the same spool of poly wire, one after the other and I would mic the wire before each coil was wound. I always mic the wire periodically through the spool as a QC measure.

I actually think this is an interesting test. I have always though that dielectric properties aside, bobbin material would make a tonal difference with an unpotted pickup due to differences in mechanical resonance between different plastics and plasticizer percentages.

[David Schwab]

I listed to the first file, the last file, and the one in the middle (just because I'm trying to not be sitting here in front of the computer). I decided to A/B the first and last track, and the first sounds brighter and with more mids. The last track sounds smoother without the peakiness of the first track. I liked track number one the best. The first track also seemed louder, which doesn't help.

I did my listening on a set of Monsoon speakers, and a set of Sennheiser HD515 headphones.

When I get a chance I'll download them all and stitch them together and even out the levels.

Very interesting test. Thanks Frank. Now lets hear the silver wire!

[frankfalbo]

Frank I'm not questioning your ability to produce a consistent product or trying to play gotcha with the test.

I know and I'm kidding around. I can't discuss our methods for creating "equal" coils, whether for production or reference testing. I'm sure this forum archive has lots of threads on the subject. Everything you said would be moot if the wire was stretched due to poor tensioning anyway, so lets just say for the benefit of any other pickup makers wanting to experiment, there are a lot of things to consider when making so-called "equal" coils. I think that's a different thread for anyone who wants to start one. We could get nuts over that and get way off track, so for now just decide your faith level in our ability to replicate and go from there.

The "gotcha" part wasn't in response to you or anyone, just because I thought about blind sound clip threads on other forums accompanied by a "guess which one is expensive, which one is cheap" premise with a punchline of "ha ha you guys thought A was B and B was A" and that's not why I put these up.

I actually think this is an interesting test. I have always though that dielectric properties aside, bobbin material would make a tonal difference with an unpotted pickup due to differences in mechanical resonance between different plastics and plasticizer percentages.

That's the right line of thinking. Even a potted pickup is influenced by mechanics. Tap on a potted pickup. It's quieter but not dead silent. Wax potting accomplishes it's task; to stop pickups from squealing, but it is not an epoxy pot, so mechanical influence is definitely present.

[Yves]

From my personal taste all in all I prefer track one (which I found to me more "forward" sounding), though I quite like the top end of the 4 but I find it as a whole a bit too much on the mids.
Listened to on ADAM A5.

Interesting thread but .... I find that the tuning of the guitar is different between the takes which makes it the most noticeable difference between the takes to me.
And therefore, I find it hard to assess the sound outcome on some other factor since the pitch itself largely modify the outcome.
Just my opinion though.

[frankfalbo]

You are right, I hate the pitch fluctuations too, but c'est la vie.

One point to consider is do you want a bobbin to impart a sonic character to the pickup, where some frequencies are excited and others diminished? Or do you want one that allows for the widest, most transparent sound, allowing you to wind the pickup to produce the desired tonal character? In other words, in clip #1 there seems to be some portions of the frequency range that are truncated. For the purpose of this test, it received the "worst" ranking because it is like delivering soup in a bowl with a hole in it. The answer is not "just add more soup". The deficiency will always exist, even if I had liked the upper midrange jangle. The higher ranked bobbins are less peaky, at least in the center frequencies. But there are other parts of the frequency spectrum that maintain strength and vibrancy. That could certainly be bad for some people! Proof that one man's worst is another mans best, and vice versa.

But think about it like this: What if the only material you had available was #4? Could you wind a pickup to sound much more like #1? I believe yes. But winding bobbin #1 to behave like #4 would be much more difficult. I find this sort of thing terribly addicting in that you can choose a variable because of what it does, or purposefully reject that variable in favor of one you can more easily control, and both can be equally valid.

Still for the sake of authenticity, if you're reproducing the sound of an existing pickup, vintage or not (even your own models from previous years) I am of the opinion that the materials should be the same, and I feel this test substantiates that position.

[StarryNight]

sounds like you're testing for potting differences not that I need to know really.

[LtKojak]

you're testing for potting differences

What kind of pot are we talking about here...?

[Ronsonic]

I listened with headphones and there is a marked difference. I'm a little surprised at how big a difference.

The first two samples, the unacceptable ones, those might have been interesting or even excellent with a different wind/magnet combination. Whatever it was that made them weird and tinky sounding with that vintagey wind might add some interest to a power pickup. But as you say, there are places you can't get to from there.

Anyway, I'd say this test confirms your argument that materials matter. I'm pretty sure you guys have worked out the coil consistency thing. I've never even heard lore that you had to pick among your pups "to get one of the good ones." if there were the least truth to that the guitar dorks of the world would have jumped on it by now. Not getting the branding is an issue, but the tone has historically been consistent.

[Grindell]

I can't take this test seriously because without knowning what the ambient air temparture was, I can't possibly determine the effect of coil expansion on the linear phasing of the coils resonant peak. Plus, the addition of the changes in the nano-molecular construction of the wire can be considered to be the biggest change in an audio reference phase inversal flux capacitor.

Oh, and without settling the difference in coil wound versus hand wound, and since we all know that by observing something at the subatomic scale we are changing it (As confirmed be many double blind slit experiements,) the knowledge of said issue of COWECO machine wound pickups at Fender are still influencing the current sound of all pickups, even those across the known universe, as such information can spread faster at the speed of light. (See any references to spooky action at a distance.)

Furthermore, if you're still reading at this poing, don't forget to tech the tech. But have we tried teching the tech. That won't work captain because the tech works inverserly proportianal to he tech. But, we could try reversing the tech. Excellent. Make it so, number one.

Man, I should write for the ScyFy channel. My made up crap sounds at least as believable as their Saturday night made for tv specials....

[Yves]

You are right, I hate the pitch fluctuations too, but c'est la vie.

OK if "c'est la vie" so it is. Still, I understand you put these takes online for fun, but this pitch thing just makes it barely possible to me to assess what does what: the whole concept of "all other things being equal" that is a prerequisite for this kind of test just collapse. On the objective side of things the vibrations differs, on the subjective side our brain plays tricks on the perceived "appeal" depending on the pitch (even though I understand the appeal wasn't your aim with this test) .
This said, I don't want to argue but I would just have liked to hear the only effect of the bobbin material (and then again you still have the picking that may differs which really makes this kind of test really difficult to run).
But thanks for sharing this anyway.

One point to consider is do you want a bobbin to impart a sonic character to the pickup, where some frequencies are excited and others diminished?

Well as opposed to electro acoustic tranducer, when it comes to magnetic pickup, I'd say that yes I want the bobbin to impart a sonic character, as I want a guitar amp to impart its character as well.
I don't think HiFi (flat response...) there.
The magnetic pickup being a really different transducer than the ear, I don't really have a clue what an ideal such transducer *should* sound like (though I have my personal mental conception of what a cool guitar sound should be depending on the style ... and strive to translate the customer idea of this to the pickup I make)

Back to electro acoustic transducer and speaking sound recording, even then I find interesting to use the sonic character that some microphone has to balance a source rather than jumping on an EQ (like is often the case).

Having said that, I get what you mean

So to make it short this is a matter of taste so I took the bowls of soup as they came, choosing the one with a bit of more meat to my taste for that particular music excerpt

Still for the sake of authenticity, if you're reproducing the sound of an existing pickup, vintage or not (even your own models from previous years) I am of the opinion that the materials should be the same, and I feel this test substantiates that position.

That makes sense to me, if you want to get/keep close to some model, just use the same material ... if available (even though there might be alternate routes, this one is the most straightforward).
I guess you have access to nearly all possible material and parts and you need definitelly to get consistency in your products due to mass production.
I don't mean that I don't mind about materials and consistancy myself (i do for the recipe/process), but being a "small guy" I've been doing custom wound so far, so the goal here is pretty diferent in the sense that the customers rather wants his unique pickup, depending on the "sonic character" he is looking for.