Quote:
Originally Posted by martingitdave
I'm in agreement with this comparison between K&K, HFN, and Trance. In essence, they all use similar piezo transducers. But the location away (and 3D suspension) from the bridge plate gives a sense of air to the tone. However, the installation is more critical with these 3 dimensional solutions, whereas K&K is nothing but slapping some superglue on a 2 dimensional disc and sticking it on.
Over the past 5 years I have tried most of the pickups on the market, including those mentioned in this thread. All of them can produce good results in some guitars with expert installation. That said, I'm back to using K&K. My time for tweaking and re-installing has all but vanished. I'm not suggesting K&K is the "answer." It's simply a matter of attrition for me. I'm further convinced no one in the audience cares, and I can't be bothered to obsess about it anymore.
So, I'm going for simple and "good enough." Schatten HFN can be an improvement over K&K in terms of adding some "air." The same is true for Amulet. The K&K begins to close the gap with a proper preamp to restore high frequency reproduction. But, that won't capture the "air" inside the guitar like a 3D element will. However, my initial installations of HFN and Trance were always disappointingly thin sounding. Who knows, maybe they would have benefited from super glue too?
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I totally get that. My only knock on the K&K is that even with eq, it still has this distinct tone that works well as a solo or duo set up but not so much in a band. The Schatten seems to just give a bit more high end. I also like that with the HFN, you can experiment without any issues. With that said, the HFN I have still needs to be readjusted so at least the K&K is consistent.