K&K Pure Mini + Lyric: Why I went back!

[Doug Young]

I've never tried installing K&Ks in a non-standard place, but I know of one person who has - he has 2 very wide, out past the bridge pins, and one behind the bridge pins. I looked at it because he was reporting problems with his live sound. Plugging in at home, low volume, it sounded fine, but he reports that at stage volumes, it gets very thin and phasey sounding. I have some guesses as to why, but really no confirmed answer. I'd just say that in general, SBTs (and I include the Lyric in that) can act very different in different guitars, and in different locations, and there's no way to predict what will happen. Over time, everyone has gravitated toward the saddle line as a fairly predictable spot. As soon as you deviate from that, you're in experimental territory. You might pick a spot and get the best sound ever - or the worst...

[Acousticado]

As I consider upgrading the after market pickup system in my non-barn door '02 Taylor 814c, I've been researching this amplification forum and this has been a very interesting thread to read. Thanks to all contributors.

In '02 when I bought the guitar, I installed a PUTW #27 SBT (passive) and use the PUTW end jack preamp (just volume control). I have the Baggs Lyric in my Emerald doubleneck, and after reading this thread, I think I want to add it in my Taylor for reasons many have cited herein. I thought I might go with the Anthem, but I'm now thinking that if I add the passive PUTW to the active Lyric, I could drop the (somewhat unwieldy) end jack preamp.

From reading this thread, I now know this is doable, but I'm curious about how the PUTW #27 is regarded (then and now), and how those of you in the know think it would sound dualed with the Lyric, say compared to the K&K Mini + Lyric? Or should I dump the PUTW and like a number of others, go with the K&K?

Thanks for any feedback!

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Acousticado

I thought I might go with the Anthem, but I'm now thinking that if I add the passive PUTW to the active Lyric, I could drop the (somewhat unwieldy) end jack preamp.

From reading this thread, I now know this is doable!

You may be misunderstanding how the 2nd source works with the Anthem. The Anthem end-pin preamp has a 2nd channel, but it's just a pass-thru, no amplification, and the 2nd source comes out on the ring of a stereo (TRS) jack. The PUTW is a very low output pickup, so you will certainly need a preamp for it, and you'll also need an outboard blender to combine the 2 signals.

[Acousticado]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

You may be misunderstanding how the 2nd source works with the Anthem. The Anthem end-pin preamp has a 2nd channel, but it's just a pass-thru, no amplification, and the 2nd source comes out on the ring of a stereo (TRS) jack. The PUTW is a very low output pickup, so you will certainly need a preamp for it, and you'll also need an outboard blender to combine the 2 signals.

Thanks Doug. Actually, I believe I said it's the Lyric and PUTW I'm thinking to combine. Regardless, perhaps the Lyric is the same which means that I'll still have to add the other components as you suggest (what might work well?). Having said this, I'm mainly wondering if anyone has any experience with PUTW products and if it's worth it to use the #27 pickup, or opt for a K&Kwith the Lyric?

[SimplyLuo]

Originally Posted by Acousticado

Thanks Doug. Actually, I believe I said it's the Lyric and PUTW I'm thinking to combine. Regardless, perhaps the Lyric is the same which means that I'll still have to add the other components as you suggest (what might work well?). Having said this, I'm mainly wondering if anyone has any experience with PUTW products and if it's worth it to use the #27 pickup, or opt for a K&Kwith the Lyric?

I think Doug accidentally typed Anthem instead of Lyric in his post. Everything he said in his post is true of the Lyric endpin preamp. You would still need a preamp for the PUTW.
The simplest option would probably be a dual source preamp like the Dtar Solstice, Headway EDB, etc. Your PUTW Power Plug has pass-through on the ring, but that's kind of the opposite of what you want...

[Acousticado]

Originally Posted by SimplyLuo

I think Doug accidentally typed Anthem instead of Lyric in his post. Everything he said in his post is true of the Lyric endpin preamp. You would still need a preamp for the PUTW.

I'm sure you're right. Thanks for the clarification.

[Doug Young]

Yes, sorry, I mean the Lyric. If I recall correctly, the Anthem doesn't support a 2nd channel.

[guitaniac]

Originally Posted by Acousticado

As I consider upgrading the after market pickup system in my non-barn door '02 Taylor 814c, I've been researching this amplification forum and this has been a very interesting thread to read. Thanks to all contributors.

In '02 when I bought the guitar, I installed a PUTW #27 SBT (passive) and use the PUTW end jack preamp (just volume control). I have the Baggs Lyric in my Emerald doubleneck, and after reading this thread, I think I want to add it in my Taylor for reasons many have cited herein. I thought I might go with the Anthem, but I'm now thinking that if I add the passive PUTW to the active Lyric, I could drop the (somewhat unwieldy) end jack preamp.

From reading this thread, I now know this is doable, but I'm curious about how the PUTW #27 is regarded (then and now), and how those of you in the know think it would sound dualed with the Lyric, say compared to the K&K Mini + Lyric? Or should I dump the PUTW and like a number of others, go with the K&K?

Thanks for any feedback!

I like the #27 a great deal, but it has a much weaker output than the PureMini. I also suspect that its output resistance is much greater than the PureMini, since the PUTW preamp's are designed with a much higher input impedance (10 Mohms) than the K&K preamp's (1 Mohm). All this tells me that you'd probably get a significant "cross talk" problem (with the Lyric signal bleeding onto the #27 channel) when trying to run the passive #27 signal and the active Lyric signal through a stereo cable.

To tell the truth, I'd be surprised if there isn't some cross talk when running the passive PureMini and the active Lyric through a stereo cable. Apparently, it isn't bad enough to negate the pleasing results which some folks are getting from using a stereo cable and an outboard blender with a passive PureMini/active Lyric setup. The Baggs folks will tell you, however, that the Lyric's auxiliary input was added with passive mag pickups in mind (because the lower output impedance of a mag pickup avoids the crosstalk problem).

With respect to the PUTW Power Plug, I believe that David Enke can wire one so that the tip output is passively passed through and the ring output is preamped. This would work nicely with an active Lyric/passive #27 setup.

[Acousticado]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

I like the #27 a great deal, but it has a much weaker output than the PureMini. I also suspect that its output resistance is much greater than the PureMini, since the PUTW preamp's are designed with a much higher input impedance (10 Mohms) than the K&K preamp's (1 Mohm). All this tells me that you'd probably get a significant "cross talk" problem (with the Lyric signal bleeding onto the #27 channel) when trying to run the passive #27 signal and the active Lyric signal through a stereo cable.

To tell the truth, I'd be surprised if there isn't some cross talk when running the passive PureMini and the active Lyric through a stereo cable. Apparently, it isn't bad enough to negate the pleasing results which some folks are getting from using a stereo cable and an outboard blender with a passive PureMini/active Lyric setup. The Baggs folks will tell you, however, that the Lyric's auxiliary input was added with passive mag pickups in mind (because the lower output impedance of a mag pickup avoids the crosstalk problem).

With respect to the PUTW Power Plug, I believe that David Enke can wire one so that the tip output is passively passed through and the ring output is preamped. This would work nicely with an active Lyric/passive #27 setup.

guitaniac, this is VERY helpful. Thank you so much!

[WeddingGuy]

OK, I know that I'm coming LATE to this party, but I have a question:

For those of you running a two-pickup system with, say, a Lyric AND a K&K or something, have you figured out a way to wire them together internally, or do you have two endpin jacks?

[rschultz]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Yes, sorry, I mean the Lyric. If I recall correctly, the Anthem doesn't support a 2nd channel.

Correct, the Anthem has a mono jack. But it's easy to wire up a stereo jack, I've done it twice... I started a thread on this a while back.

[Rmz76]

Thanks for this post. It's an interesting idea to blend the two. I'm not a fan of the Lyric on its own but blended with a K&K sounds like a great idea.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by rschultz

Correct, the Anthem has a mono jack. But it's easy to wire up a stereo jack, I've done it twice... I started scthread on this a while back.

Yeah, I meant that it didn't naturally offer a 2nd channel path, like the Lyric does. I also replaced the jack on an Anthem with a stereo jack, easy to do. But the Anthem SL is integrated with the circuit board so you can't replace the SL jack.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by WeddingGuy

OK, I know that I'm coming LATE to this party, but I have a question:

For those of you running a two-pickup system with, say, a Lyric AND a K&K or something, have you figured out a way to wire them together internally, or do you have two endpin jacks?

The Lyric has solder pads for a 2nd channel and it already has a TRS jack, so you just wire the K&K to the 2nd input, and you get both out of a single TRS jack. You need to blend externally. The bigger issue is that both the Lyric and K&K ideally go in the same place, so one has to be compromised and placed elsewhere. In my install, I put the Lyric behind the bridge pins. Seems to work ok, tho I've had mixed results. Sometimes it seems to work great, other times not so well.

For any dual source system I've used, I use a single TRS jack. There are pickup combinations where that's somewhere between difficult and impossible, so you have to use 2 jacks. For me, I'd have to be really certain that was my final pickup solution to drill a second end pin hole. 2 endpins also dictates how the rest of your signal chain works. For example, I often use an SPS-1 end pin module, which mixes two signals out of a TRS jack. That's not going to work if I have two jacks. So now, I'm making decisions about what pickups, how many holes, and what preamp setups I use. Seems like a big commitment.

[WeddingGuy]

Thank you, Dourg Young and rsschultz!

I apologize for my then-uninformed question. I have now gone back and read in much greater detail this entire thread, as well as rsschultz' thread concerning soldering into the Lyric preamp jack. Makes a lot of sense. I'm coming to the conclusion that this is a good way to go. I already have the Solstice--and like it--so this seems like a viable solution.

One reason that I was confused, perhaps, is that several years ago Dieter at K&K hooked me up with a funny little stereo cable with a 1/8" female jack right near the 1/4" plug going into the guitar. So, I ran a Meridian into that, and it worked well. But I've never tried combining the two internally (yet).

For those of you some months ahead of me in all of this, are you still enjoying your lyric + K&K combo?