At today’s value of some $1,000+ for a single pickup some of the genuine original late 1950’s Gibson PAF’s are widely believed to be the best humbucker. People talk about it’s pleasing sound and endlessly discuss the sonic characteristics and how they relate to modern guitar playing. And it seems the whole pickup industry [...]

In a far off land a long time ago, a fellow called Leo was experimenting with solid body guitars and a new concept in pickup design. No one really knows for sure how he came up with the end result but from what I know of the story I suspect it was due to [...]

Magnets: Do magnets shape the tone? (and what are the differences between Alnico, Samarium Cobalt, and Ferrite?) Hearing is believing, click on these to hear my point: "Sound" & "Sound" These are the detailed and complex sounds and colors of Alnico. And viewing a ' Spectral analysis graph ' comparing a Kinman AVN-56 to [...]

The story of the Kinman P90-Bucker begins where Seth Lover left off in 1955. Hello everyone, I thought some of you will be interested in following the development of a radically different humbucker I call the P90-Bucker. As the same implies it's got the sound of a P-90 in a humbucker format, which means [...]

Subject: The dawn of the 600 Ohm noise sensor The BIG problem with noiseless (hum cancelling) single coil pickups is the hum sensing coil strangles a lot of the tone that comes from the string sensor. Kinman has always put a lot of effort into designing sonically transparent hum sensors and as far back [...]

Everyone has heard that the old Strats have a special sound, this mystical thing called Vintage sound. Because the mystique of these old instruments adds value to them it puts them out of reach of most guitar players. Hence it's rare to find anyone who actually has first hand knowledge of aged sound. This [...]