Down and dirty bobbin tests-take a listen

[Ronsonic]

Made up crap?

YouTube - Rockwell Retro Encabulator

Here's the pro's.

[Grindell]

Holy....Crap..... I bow to the masters..... The differential girdle springs?

[big_teee]

I listened to them all again, They all sound ok.
IMO the worse sounding and a bit muffled is #3.
I liked #1 better than #3.
I liked #1 better than #2.
Heres my order.
4,5,1,2,3.
As far as the pitch thing getting in the way. It's not that noticeable.
There is someone playing each sample (I think), and it's impossible to play the same thing exactly the same each time, but It's real close.
IMO I always thought, and still do that the bobbin would make the least difference if dimensions are the same and all a good insulator. I think Wire Type, Amount of wire, magnet gauss and magnet type, Baseplate Material, screw and slug material would effect tone the most.
I guess everything is so nailed down at SD that your down to splitting hairs.
It was mentioned before and IMO I agree that a single coil on a single bobbin would be a better more accurate test. It would be the most simple and have least amount of varibles.
Rock on!

[Steve Conner]

Well, with my EE head on I can't see how the different plastics make much of a difference. Unless they have totally different dielectric constants, loss angles and so on. But with my mechanical head on...

Maybe the wire winds differently onto different bobbins. Slips down the sides more or less, scatters differently, whatever. Different surface roughnesses, coefficients of friction, whatever. That would be my no.1 hypothesis. Winding seems like quite a chaotic, non-linear process, and bobbin material could be a butterfly's wing kind of trigger for it.

Maybe the bobbins are slightly different dimensions. A small change could make a big difference to the finished coil, see above.

Maybe you put the different pickups in at slightly different heights or angles. Who ever checks to make sure their humbucker is exactly parallel to the strings? But it makes quite a difference to the tone. I don't know why they make the things with only two mounting screws, so you can't adjust the angle.

But I assume you checked both the screw and slug sides, on the low and high strings, with vernier calipers to the nearest millimeter.

[jez]

Hi
Very useful test I can certainly hear the difference.

cheers

jez

[David Schwab]

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.

I don't see a problem with that. After all you can still hear the differences when you play different notes on the same guitar. So pitch does not affect timber. And the differences in pitch here are small.

I think it's a valid test.

[Yves]

I don't see a problem with that.

No problem if I am the only one annoyed with that (appart from Frank who mentionned he "hates" the pitch fluctuation too). But I stick to my point of view and am honestly disturbed when doing an A/B test with pich differences.

After all you can still hear the differences when you play different notes on the same guitar. So pitch does not affect timber.

True, I hear differences, but I quite don't agree that pitch difference doesn't affect the timber. The actual guitar has it own acoustics "responce" as well as the pickup has its own resonnant peak. I you shift the pitch you modify the frequency and therefore the way it transfers through the whole assembly.
I am not saying it just changes everything, but then I have a hard time to guess what is really affecting the tone there (material, pitch?)

And the differences in pitch here are small.

I am not pretending to have a perfect pitch ear or whatever, nothing like that.
I am just really surprised that this doesn't annoy more people than this.
Yes differences in pitch are not hudge and most of the takes are quite close indeed but if you take take 1 and 3 for instance, I guess they are closer from being a quarter tone apart than to be in tune. That is not circumstantial for an A/B test to me.
Well, if you listen to the wholes takes (including the tapping test) one after the other, this is "fine" since the ear hasn't got that much memory (unless you have perfect ear).
But if you try to do an A/B switch test and concentrate on some excerpts by switching from one to another - like I do- the first thing that I feel between takes that are diferent in pitch is "wow, I am going down (or up) in the whole mood this is sounding", and this, plus the fact that I believe different pitches don't transfer equally, is really preventing me from doing a unbiased assesment.

I think it's a valid test.

As repeated here, I would have hard time assessing each individual material on the same basis, but overall I think it's a valid test too speaking the takes that are close enough in pitch since this demonstrates the fact that the bobbin material affects the sound. And it surprises me that this is noticeable.

[big_teee]

He did Say up front that it was a Down and dirty Test, and Listen so to speak at your own Risk!
Terry