Pickup grade in my SE Zach Myer...Thornbuckers ?

[DogPhishHead]

At this point I don't have the financial means to buy a core PRS, so I'm thinking that an investment of under $300 I can replace the stock SE245 pickups and pots with a pair of splitable Suhr Thornbuckers and new pots with coil tapping option. Anyone have experience with the Suhr humbuckers ? I'd like to keep the paf tone in that low output range, able to ride the volume pots for clean to blues. I play blues, jam and jazz - never any high gain stuff. I'm a sucker for mellow neck pickup tones for subtle blues and the bridge pickup for some Robben Ford dumbly cut.

 

[Stephen Rudnick]

I replaced a set of DiMarzio PAF Pro pickups with Thornbuckers in one of my XOX Audio Tools Handle guitars.
The neck pickup is as clear and detailed as any pickup I have ever had in the neck position of any guitar I have owned or played. It distorts extremely well, but is detailed, and when played clean...forgetaboutit! Absolutely beautiful and takes amplification dialing beautifully.

The bridge pickup is a again truly wonderful and pure PAF sounding. I have mine set up with two mini toggles. One is for each individual pickup. I had the pickup mini toggles wired to go series (which is how a regular humbucking double coil is wired), single coil, and parallel wired for the two coils in each individual pickup. All three sounds are very usable and different sounding but work well. These guitars use a volume, tone, and blend control, so combining the different wiring sounds allow a lot of versatility.

 

[garrettb]

I have Thornbuckers in my S2 Singlecut Standard and they are phenomenal. Stephen nailed the description. I think they deliver as advertised in the Suhr videos with Pete demonstrating them.

I highly recommend going with individual push/pulls with resistors (1.1k neck, 2.2k bridge) to split the coils. They don't lose much volume so I use various split tones all the time live with the band. I replaced the volume pots with modern wiring on PRS pots, keeping the 180pf treble bleed caps. The guitar is insanely versatile. Every combination is useful.

The raw covers look great, too.

 

[Mixstar]

The raw covers look great, too

And vary in tone from uncovered from what I can gather?

 

[garrettb]

Pete and John purposefully went with unplated covers to keep the sound as close to uncovered as possible. I remember reading that there may be a very small amount of high end attenuation, but not as much as if they'd gone with other materials. John explained in detail on TGP. They did a ton of experimenting and testing to get to the final product.

 

[Mixstar]

I'm in the process of buying a pair of zebra Thornbuckers. They aren't that readily available in the UK but I think I've found a reliable source. I have also asked the question about covered/uncovered. I will post their reply.

 

[garrettb]

From the horses' mouths, on TGP:

(sinasl1 is the "Thorn" in Thornbucker)
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/in...-pafs-right-here.1532797/page-4#post-19949944

(husky is Mr. Suhr himself)
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/in...irst-impressions.1567096/page-2#post-20649183