Question pickup pole piece magnet height. Stingray vs Sterling

[dannyt]

Hello all,
New member here. This is my first real post other than getting the DOB for my basses in the serial number thread.

I have a question about an observed difference between the pickups on my Stingray 4HH vs my Sterling 4H.

The pole pieces on my Stingray all stick up the same amount from the plastic pickup cover. They are pretty low and they are the same heigh all the way across, on both pickups. On my Sterling the outer pole pieces
(E and G stings) are pretty low, about like the Stingray, but the inner pole pieces (A and D stings) stick out about twice as far. I would assume that this is to follow to the radius of the neck/strings. My question is, Why then, are the pole pieces on my Stingray all the same height?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Golem]

I've always just assumed it's cuz the hotter
magnets in the Sterling are more sensitive to
distance while the SR magnets have a more
generalized field of effect, not very sensitive
to small differences in distance. Now you got
me wondering about that .....

`

 

[dannyt]

Its interesting that you say the sterling's magnets may be sensitve to distance. I have been tweaking my setup and i have to say that i agree with you on that one.
When i first received my SR i did my initial setup the way i was used to, low action and pickups pretty close to strings. I quickly realized something was out of whack. So i re-did my setup per the specs on the MM website faq's page. In doing so i discovered that EBMM bass setup differs slightly from what i was used to. After experimenting with string height, i realized the strings would sing when i raised them a bit. I also realized that when i set the pickup height per the spec, that i got some killer sustain. Clearly this spec had a sweet spot dialed in.

Well once i got my sterling, i immediately put on some new strings and set it up the same way. Right off i was a bit disappointed. I mean, it had that growl and tone i expected, but the notes sounded muffled and would drop off quicky. Definitely not that sing of my SR.
The sound i was getting reminded me of my initial setup on my ray. So the first place i looked was pickup height.
i guess this was how i first noticed the differing magnets.

I realized that if i set my pickup height from the plastic pickup cover to the string, then the magnet height would be pretty different from the stingray.
I began experimenting with pickup height and listening for sound change.
I started by dropping the pickup about 1/32" and i noticed a big improvement on clarity and sustain. I lowered it another 1/32" and i noticed the sustain suffered again.
At this point i began doing A-B with both the Stingray and the Sterling comparing clarity and sustain, moving the Sterling pickup up and down by 1/64" at a time. Believe it or not, going in 64th increments, i was able to hear when i hit the sweet spot and the bass began to sing like my stingray, and i was also able to tell when i had passed it.
In the end the sterling's MAGNETS end up being about 1/32" farther away from the strings compared to my stingray(i say magnets because in this case measuring from the top of the pickup cover would not give a same-same dimension).
I assume the distance is greater bc of the stronger magnets.

Anyway. Long story short.
I definitetely agree that the sterling magnets seem to be sensitive to height.

 

[bdgotoh]

For some reason the HH and HS models have the poles all even and nearly flush with the cover but the single H models are older designs and have the outer poles lower than the inner poles with the poles all sticking further out of the cover.
This is true of both Stingrays and Sterlings.

 

[sanderhermans]

For some reason the HH and HS models have the poles all even and nearly flush with the cover but the single H models are older designs and have the outer poles lower than the inner poles with the poles all sticking further out of the cover.
This is true of both Stingrays and Sterlings.

True. I believe that the flat pole pieces where done to counter weaker sounding G strings. Alot of people allready modded their single H stingrays to have even polepieces for this reason.