PRS Standard Satin Muddy Sounding Pickups. UPDATE: Need pickup recommendations for after 1M pot change, see post 26.

[Lewguitar]

So you have a '22 S2 standard with the 5815S, correct?

I have a mixed bag experience with the S pickups, most of them I haven't cared for much and usually swap them out. I believe G&B still makes them. G&B pickups are made by KHL that are used in several brands as OEM from WMI. They also makes Artec pickups. All in the same class more or less as GFS. Serviceable import pickups, but not really fair to compare them to a DGT, assuming it's core.

The 5815S I've liked in a couple guitars, the s2 thinline 594 and seHb2, but so so to my ears in the rest of the models. My seHb2 took me a while to get dialed in on both the bridge and neck. Now it sounds great, but there was a very small window of turns that I consider a sweet spot. Anything out of that, back to meh to my ears.

GFS is the same to me, not bad pickups, and I have used some in lower tier guitars and builds over the years. But I wouldn't consider them much more than bang for the buck. If I was serous about my tone I'd look elsewhere. It's always been better off when I went another route. A good example is their Humbucker P90. I was on a H90 kick, and they were good for the price, but not even close to the Frailin that ended up being my favorite or really the other half dozen or so brands I tried.

The biggest s2 point of weakness is electronics. I'd start there. And look at a higher quality pickups if the tone still isn't where you want to be. The s2 deserves the love, awesome guitars.

Lew and Frank gave some good suggestions on pickups.

Wolfetone, DrV in the neck and Marshallhead in the bridge. My favorite wolfetone combo, and I've tried most of them. 5708 are always a win in my book for PRS pickups. JB/Jazz has been my SD go to for years, and the 59 in the neck is also a solid choice.

I have not had mixed success with G&B pickups. They were all lousy.

All of my SE Bernie Marsdens came with them and all of my SE Singlecuts.

The guitars are wonderful but the pickups are dull sounding, lousy pickups and I've replaced them all.

It's not really worth the effort but they CAN be improved with magnet swaps.

But it's a waste of time if you really want a profssional tone.

 

[SinSir]

I have not had mixed success with G&B pickups. They were all lousy.

All of my SE Bernie Marsdens came with them and all of my SE Singlecuts.

The guitars are wonderful but the pickups are dull sounding, lousy pickups and I've replaced them all.

It's not really worth the effort but they CAN be improved with magnet swaps.

But it's a waste of time if you really want a profssional tone.

I always pull them as well. The only S pups that I've liked are the 5815 and Vela. Though, my one guitar with 5815 I'm getting ready to swap, and I have a core starla pickup to swap into the Vela bridge. The Vela neck isn't going anywhere.

 

[Lewguitar]

Well, I got home about an hour ago. I tested the neck pickup this way:

Found the GFS to be at 4.55k and max resistance was 131k.... doing the math, I've got a 519k volume pot. So, looks like I should try some new humbuckers, probably with an A5 magnet.

I'm only going to be here a day, so I got a little time to decide. I'm probably going to try the SD 59s because they sounded good in a LP type guitar that I almost bought. I'll still give it a little thought. I'll be gone 4 weeks before I can get back to this. I'll update when I get the next step.

Thanks for the input everyone!

A set of 59's should sound a lot better.

I'd look for a set with 4 conductor wiring so I could split coils, go parallel, etc.

59's are my favorite pickups for magnet swaps too.

 

[Woodrow F Call]

A set of 59's should sound a lot better.

I'd look for a set with 4 conductor wiring so I could split coils, go parallel, etc.

59's are my favorite pickups for magnet swaps too.

Definitely going 4 wire. I never liked coil tapped pickups until I got this DGT.... even the S2 sounds great tapped (unlike untapped). I have an 05 McCarty I'm thinking about adding the resistors to for the tapped sounds. It really seems to improve the coil tapped sounds.

 

[Lewguitar]

Definitely going 4 wire. I never liked coil tapped pickups until I got this DGT.... even the S2 sounds great tapped (unlike untapped). I have an 05 McCarty I'm thinking about adding the resistors to for the tapped sounds. It really seems to improve the coil tapped sounds.

Add the resistors. Makes a big improvement. Well worth it.

 

[Woodrow F Call]

Option paralysis on pickups has me bogged down. Hoping to be done on this job in a day, so I ordered a 1M pot. We'll try that first. In the meantime, got any pickup recommendations? Thinking about some Lollar Imperial Low Winds now just for the description on the website being great for darker guitars. SD 59s and PAF Masters were also on the might try list.

 

[Woodrow F Call]

Well, 1M pots really did change the character. There's a lot more treble frequencies coming through. Kinda too much.

Probably going to try better pots back at 500k and do a pickup swap.