What's the difference between the pickups in the higher end 594's and the SE McCarty 594?

[Jerrydpi]

As the Title states, what's the difference between them, and has anyone put the more expensive pu's in their SE McCarty 594 and noticed a significant difference?

 

[LunarRock]

Core pickups are best, but there's probably not as much delta as there used to be between SE, and earlier S2, to core. I only have experience of upgrading those and it was night & day, now I don't know if I would bother, unless I had a set already

 

[show_a_little_faith]

In theory, they should be similar - made to the same specs, just the SE's are made overseas, and the Core one's are made in the USA. I would assume the materials used are sourced separately too. Do those 2 factors make them sound different?...

To be clear, the current versions should be the most similar - they're all referred to now as "LT" (low-turn), whereas up until recently the USA one's were LT but the overseas ones were not designated as that.

There are a lot of people who strongly feel the imports are inferior, and there are also plenty who are quite happy with them. Best advice I can give is to play and compare them yourself, and decide what sounds best to *you*

 

[RC Mike]

In theory, they should be similar - made to the same specs, just the SE's are made overseas, and the Core one's are made in the USA. I would assume the materials used are sourced separately too. Do those 2 factors make them sound different?...

How do you know they’re made to the “same specs”? If they were the same pickups, just made in different factories, they’d sound identical.

They may share a similar name and perhaps a similar intended sound, but that’s about it from what I can tell.

 

[SinSir]

They share the name is about the extent of it. That said I have a seHb2 that fights off the pickup swap since purchase. Still they sound nothing like core counterparts besides PAFish.