Strat Ceramic Vs Alnico

Magnet material is usually one of two varieties.

Strat ceramic vs alnico.

A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. Ceramic vs alnico discussion in stratocaster discussion forum started by ratherbefishing. You see ceramic is easier to come by than alnico making it a cheaper magnet to make. Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides.

Technically more efficient ceramic magnets took over in a wide variety of commercial applications starting in the 1960s but ceramic magnet guitar pickups were found to have a generally harsher more brittle sound with sharper peaks than their alnico predecessors. Whereas alnico pickups use magnetic slugs direct loading. Let s listen to how they sound. Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico.

Donate to guitars for good causes. Ceramic magnets are made of ceramic surprise. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool. Ceramic magnets tend to boost treble response and have become popular for pickups with extra coil winding to compensate for the treble loss.

The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. What s the difference between ceramic alnico magnet pickups. Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most. You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction.

I haven t seen a strat pickup yet where ceramic magnet rods were used instead of metal polepieces or alnico slugs but it would be interesting to be able to compare them. Alnico was used in all popular vintage pickups and generally has a warm and smooth response. So we often hear.