Did B-Band Blow It Or Did We Blow It?

[Cuki79]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

I'd forgotten about that high frequency hiss which one could hear at high gain levels. It was a bit annoying when I boosted the gain for bare-fingered picking.

For the folks who didn't want electronics in their guitars, there was also the fact that you couldn't use the B-Band pickups passively with a typical outboard preamp. The B-Band preamps had an input impedance of 50 Mohms to accommodate the pickup's unique technology.

The preamp also has 20dB gain. 50 Mohm and 20dB gain means that you must have really good shielding to avoid noise.

Also "high frequency hiss" might be due to the preamp going into "oscillation".

[Cuki79]

Originally Posted by guitaniac

The B-Band preamps had an input impedance of 50 Mohms to accommodate the pickup's unique technology.

The comparison (see link below) shows a much lower capacitance than PVDF films (20 times less), that explains why you need extraordinary high input impedance to save the low end.

link

[hat]

Grizzly Tools has some B-Band sets available. Look under their 'Home and Shop' category, there is a Luthier supplies link.