Lewguitar
Old Know It All
I have not had mixed success with G&B pickups. They were all lousy.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.
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.