I've posted before about trying different pickups in the ALHH (I wired a 2nd pickguard up so I can swap more easily. Original pickguard kept original pickups, new one had a bare bones 3 way toggle and standard 500k pots-no coil splitting/superswitching etc.) I tried a number of delightful pickups including the Duncan Saturday Night Specials, a Seth Lover neck/59 bridge combo, Harmonic Design Z90's, a Lollar Charlie Christian in the neck. Most were close to what I wanted but still bugged me a little. Finally tried the Gemini Mercury I humbuckers and I may not ever even go back to the stock pickups. They're everything I'd ever hoped for in a humbucker.
After years of convincing myself I was fine with how dark the pickups were in the original STV's (I even had EBMM send me some 500k pots and had a tech put them in the circuit board for some reason), after the Goldie usurped it in my guitar hierarchy and I've been playing more and more with my Jazzmaster and Duo Jet, AND after loading my AL with those Mercury I pickups, I decided I needed brighter pickups in the STV. I also didn't want to rewire the whole thing so I stuck with Dimarzio for ease of drop in replacement, including triangle tabs on the bridge p/u, plus I have a Stealth Black STV and Dimarzio offers 2 sets of minis with black covers that are readily available. So I wound up with a PG-13 in the neck and a Notorious in the bridge. Much better overall-not my favorites ever but nothing I feel inclined to change right now, either. They're nice, for sure. I got the PG-13 neck first, liked it enough to figure I change the bridge to match. It looked like the Notorious and PG-13 bridges were virtually the same; both ceramic, output within 3 mv, within .05k resistance, and listed as the exact same EQ. Gear Tree offered me a discount on the Notorious on Reverb, so I nabbed that. Funny, I've never really listened to any Paul Gilbert or Polyphia. But they're good, versatile pickups.
After years of convincing myself I was fine with how dark the pickups were in the original STV's (I even had EBMM send me some 500k pots and had a tech put them in the circuit board for some reason), after the Goldie usurped it in my guitar hierarchy and I've been playing more and more with my Jazzmaster and Duo Jet, AND after loading my AL with those Mercury I pickups, I decided I needed brighter pickups in the STV. I also didn't want to rewire the whole thing so I stuck with Dimarzio for ease of drop in replacement, including triangle tabs on the bridge p/u, plus I have a Stealth Black STV and Dimarzio offers 2 sets of minis with black covers that are readily available. So I wound up with a PG-13 in the neck and a Notorious in the bridge. Much better overall-not my favorites ever but nothing I feel inclined to change right now, either. They're nice, for sure. I got the PG-13 neck first, liked it enough to figure I change the bridge to match. It looked like the Notorious and PG-13 bridges were virtually the same; both ceramic, output within 3 mv, within .05k resistance, and listed as the exact same EQ. Gear Tree offered me a discount on the Notorious on Reverb, so I nabbed that. Funny, I've never really listened to any Paul Gilbert or Polyphia. But they're good, versatile pickups.
