Electrical and magnetic measurements of my HRW pickups

[nuke]

I recently acquired a 2001 H535 with the HRW pickups in it.  I was around then the HRW was introduced and it was the bee's knees, and nowdays not so much. 

I have test equipment, and I can actually measure and compare the magnetic properties and electrical properties of pickups, plot their overall response curves and characterize them objectively.  The coil resistance really doesn't tell us anything about the pickup's performance. It has very little to do with the sound they make. Wht is important is the inductance and the loaded resonant frequency of the pickup. 

After comparing the properties I measured of the HRW's I have with many other pickups, I will say they are very close to the Seymour Duncan SH-2 Jazz pickup set. The inductance and capacitance of the coils, the magnetic field strengths and resonant frequency are very close, right around 5% within the same measurements. The magnet fields are a bit stronger on the HRW, but not all that much. Within the range of normal variance for pickups. 

The other part of the HRW package is the potentiometer values, the HRW's use 500k volume and 250k tone pots, with the same .022 capacitors that Heritage normally used.  

My friend has a 335 with a SH-2 Jazz neck and SH-4 (JB) bridge pickup, and the Jazz and HRW neck is quite similar sounding and output is right in the ballpark. 

 

 

 

[zydecosoultrain]

Thanks Nuke.  That is really interesting. Like your friend, I have a H535 with an Sh-2 in the neck and a JB in the bridge. I also have a H575 with HRWs which I think of as fairly hot compared to the H535. Certainly the H535 makes a lot more background hiss through the amp but that may be due to other electrical issues I guess. I'll try to clean up the input jack on the H575 and carefully compare the neck pickup sound on each guitar. 

[hinesarchtop]

Nice to know. I finally picked up an LCR meter so I can measure more values. No ones ever divulged the guarded secret if the HRW as far as I know. Thanks for the info!

[bolero]

Hey good info. Thanks for doing that!