Stingray PU: Old, New, Classic differences?

[Slamzilla]

Stingray 4 PU: Old, New, Classic differences?

I am interested to know if there are differences in the design of the Stingray pickups. Old vs New vs Classic. I have searched the forum but reached no conclusion. The pole pieces seem to have changed a bit but have the guts been changed as well? My stingray is a 2000 model if this helps. Sorry if this has been answered before.
Thanks!
Z

 

[bassguy411]

one difference that I noticed right off the bat was an updated pick up cover shape, also the pole pieces are now beveled off nice and smooth. I play with my fingers 80% of the time. After playing on my previous Stingrays the tips off my fingers would almost be raw after making contact with the sharp edges. I was forced to change my hand position to avoid the contact. My new SR4HH is smooth as silk.
As far as internally I couldn't comment on the guts, they still sound the same to me.

 

[bdgotoh]

There have been 3 versions of Stingray pickup guts over the years, and two covers.

The first version had extremely long alnico poles that required routes in the pickup cavity, that lasted a year or two. They were wound with a little less coil wire than later versions.

The second version had the short poles they have now, but they were sharp on top - no bevel, they lasted until around 2003.

The third version has short poles that are nicely rounded on top. Coil windings look the same and have the same resistance between versions 2 and 3.

The covers up until the introduction of the HH and HS models had 3 separate lugs. Covers on the multi pickup models have 2 lugs - one long and one short.

As always, see Gav's excellent site for pics and more details: http://myweb.ecomplanet.com/TOWN8019/mycustompage0019.htm

 

[oli@bass]

One more thing to add: It seems that the pickups of single H and HH / HS versions of StingRay and Sterling basses are different in that the single H have staggered pole pieces that stick out above the cover a bit, while the pole pieces on the dual pickup StingRay and Sterling models (and all the other bass models such as Bongo, Reflex, Big Al) have the same length and are flush with the pickup cover.

As for the sound (as this questions always arises): I could not find any characteristic difference between the bridge pickups of single H and HH StingRay models, since differences in woods seem to have a larger contribution to the sound than any possible differences of the pickups.

 

[Slamzilla]

Fantastic info!
Thanks gang
Z