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Old 01-12-2011, 12:15 PM
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El Conquistador El Conquistador is offline
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Central California
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After being stranded at a gig by a dead battery in my soundhole pu, I was very attracted to the idea of having no batteries anywhere in my signal chain. After a great deal of research, I ended up going with the K&K passive pu with a Red Eye pre-amp using the XLR connection to the phantom power in my SA200.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Turp View Post
This would have me believe that one gives up full spectrum tone with a passive pu like the K&K. However, the K&K gets tons of rave reviews citing its "natural sound". So, if your goal is to have your amplified guitar sound as much like your your guitar unplugged, this certainly would not be a good thing? So, what do we all think about this assertion?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Herb Hunter View Post
The question is do you want the preamplifier in your guitar, where it can boost the signal before additional noise is introduced through the guitar cord (plus provide tone controls that can cut or boost frequency bands) or do you want to use a preamplifier in the PA mixer or guitar amplifier which will boost the signal and boost the noise added by the guitar cable? Passive pickups, if they have any tone control at all, will only attenuate certain frequencies, they can't boost them.
I am not overly experienced with these, but, I have seen very little "tone controls" on any after market guitar pu, active or passive, mostly just volume control. So, how big a deal is this? Also, how big of an issue are we talking about with the "cord noise" assertion here? I either don't have this issue with my K&K, or I have missed it. Should I be listening more closely for it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Duncan121 View Post
Some believe you get a cleaner tone and its far less complicated.
.
Going by the first quote, an active pu has a more complete tonal spectrum, so, how do you differentiate cleaner tone from more complete tone?
Steve
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