I hadn't noticed the P245 SH had a coil tap. Great, my GAS levels just increased again!
I'd really like to know, on a technical circuit-based level, how PRS avoids the volume/signal level dropping on the 408 - in theory, it should be completely expected and unavoidable, you have half the coils reacting to the magnetic field disturbance.
EDIT: My google-fu seems to be working better today than previously on this subject. I just found this in a post on TDPRI.com, quoting some text from an iheartguitarblog.com review:
http://iheartguitarblog.com/2012/05...re-limited.html#sthash.QJYM0obx.KFcTJX0a.dpbs
http://www.tdpri.com/threads/coil-splitting-to-avoid-volume-drop.581472/
"the pickups are very cleverly designed to maintain the same volume when you switch between humbucker and single coil configurations ... the circuit turns one coil of the humbucker off and actually adds extra wire turns to the other one, beefing up its output and making it act much more like a ‘regular’ fully-wound single coil. For each pickup, the coil closer to the neck is the one that gets activated in single mode ... "
The TDPRI thread goes on to offer up this:
"The 408 allegedly adds an extra 1500 turns in single coil mode."
Which I had considered to be a possible solution: overwind the single coil part of the humbucker, but only use a portion of that winding in humbucker mode. If you like, you lower the signal level of the humbucker to match the full output of the single coil. It sounds crazy at first, but makes sense after all!
