Hi
I have ibanez sa 260 guitar , and i think bridge pick up is pretty poor sounding.
I have 1 humbucker from my old harley benton and i would like use it on ibanez... Humbucker have only 2 wires.
bridgepickup in ibanes have 5 wires ,
ibanez have on 1 volume and one tone pot and 5 way selector switch.
is it possible make humbucker work with ibanez?
Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
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For all tech discussions relating to Guitars, Basses, Amps, Pedals & Accessories.
For all tech discussions relating to Guitars, Basses, Amps, Pedals & Accessories.
Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
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- JohannesKoskela
- Posts: 2 Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2023 9:46 am
Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
Welcome to the SOS forums Johannes.
The Ibanez pickup does have 5 wires, but they are connected in a way that is the same electrically as the 2 wires on the Harley Benton. Two of the 5 wires on the Ibanez pick-up are connected together to link the two coils of the humbucker, another two wires are the beginning and end of the pick-up and one of them is connected to the 5th wire which is a ground connection.
Before changing the Ibanez pick-up it might be worth experimenting with adjusting its height. Bringing it closer to the strings or further away will change the sound slightly. And you can also tweak the sound by moving the bass side closer or further away than the treble side.
The Harley Benton pick-up is nothing special. It will probably sound different from the Ibanez but it is probably a step down in quality.
Andy
The Ibanez pickup does have 5 wires, but they are connected in a way that is the same electrically as the 2 wires on the Harley Benton. Two of the 5 wires on the Ibanez pick-up are connected together to link the two coils of the humbucker, another two wires are the beginning and end of the pick-up and one of them is connected to the 5th wire which is a ground connection.
Before changing the Ibanez pick-up it might be worth experimenting with adjusting its height. Bringing it closer to the strings or further away will change the sound slightly. And you can also tweak the sound by moving the bass side closer or further away than the treble side.
The Harley Benton pick-up is nothing special. It will probably sound different from the Ibanez but it is probably a step down in quality.
Andy
Is it about a bicycle?
Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
Hi and welcome.
For the benefit of others I'll mention that the SA 260 is an HSS configured guitar with a 5-way blade selector switch.
I agree that the current Quantum pickups Ibanez use aren't great sounding. I've heard them in two S-series Ibanez guitars and they were quickly replaced. Very thin sounding with no bass. The original Quantum pickups were decent Alnico units and were Ibanez's top-of the range pickups before they started fitting DiMarzios. They've re-used the name on a new design of pickups but to me (and Max/Studio Support Gnome - who did the ripping out) they sound absolutely terrible.
It is 'possible' to make the Harley Benton humbucker work in it, but with a slightly different connection arrangement.
At the moment the bridge + middle position selection splits the humbucker so you get two single coils in parallel for a Strat-like mixed position sound. With your Harley Benton pickup, you can't split the humbucker, so the middle + bridge position would be a single coil + humbucker sound. This is normally a slightly thicker sound, but still very useable.
If you want to keep a very similar sound in the mid+bridge position, then you'll need to get a 4-wire pickup (the braid screen isn't normally considered a wire when counting the number of conductors). There are lots of great low-cost pickups availble these days from the likes of Tonerider and Iron Gear (and quite a few others) which come with 4-conductor wiring as standard which make them easier to integrate into your guitar.
I said that it's 'possible' to use the Harley Benton pickup with the Ibanez. That's because there's a 50/50 chance of the output being polarity inverted with respect to the existing Ibanez single coils.
The reality is that despite pickup manufacturers all talking about 'North' and 'South' coils and coil start and coil end wires as if these terms were fixed in stone, a lot of manufacturers have a different idea of what North and South is, and so if you mix two manufacturer's pickups together, you have a good chance of the signals being polarity inverted (typically but wrongly called 'out of phase') if you wire them up as per the manufacturer's wiring diagrams with respect to the ground and hot connections.
You are then gong to get a really thin sound when the pickups are used in combination (single pickup selection sound isn't affected at all). Whilst this can be interesting, the amount of times you'd actually use it is minimal, so is best left as an option selected via a switched pot or mini-toggle switch rather than as one of your main selection sounds.
You can normally fix this by swapping the hot and ground wire connections around on one or more of the pickups, but to be able to do so you need either 4-wire+screen humbuckers or two-wire (no screen) single coils. If you've got single wire + screen humbucker(s) and single wire + screen single coil(s), then you can't fix it by swapping the hot and ground wires over as the pickup shield wire has to go to signal ground, otherwise you'll get bad noise pickup on the guitar.
I think the Ibanez single coils are normally two-wire devices, so if you find the Harley Benton pickup is polarity reversed with respect to the middle single coil pickup, then you can simply swap the ground and hot connections over on both of the single coil pickups.
I don't know how experienced you are at soldering or wiring up guitar pickups. so this may sound quite daunting if you are inexperienced. Unlike on a Strat, where the pickups and controls are mounted on a scratchplate and it's easy to do the wiring outside the guitar, the pickups and controls are in separate cavities on the SA 260, so the wiring will probably have to be done in situ, which makes it a bit harder. You may be able to remove the pots and switch and mount them on a bit of cardboard whilst you solder, if there's enough extra length in the wires, which will make things easier.
For the benefit of others I'll mention that the SA 260 is an HSS configured guitar with a 5-way blade selector switch.
I agree that the current Quantum pickups Ibanez use aren't great sounding. I've heard them in two S-series Ibanez guitars and they were quickly replaced. Very thin sounding with no bass. The original Quantum pickups were decent Alnico units and were Ibanez's top-of the range pickups before they started fitting DiMarzios. They've re-used the name on a new design of pickups but to me (and Max/Studio Support Gnome - who did the ripping out) they sound absolutely terrible.
It is 'possible' to make the Harley Benton humbucker work in it, but with a slightly different connection arrangement.
At the moment the bridge + middle position selection splits the humbucker so you get two single coils in parallel for a Strat-like mixed position sound. With your Harley Benton pickup, you can't split the humbucker, so the middle + bridge position would be a single coil + humbucker sound. This is normally a slightly thicker sound, but still very useable.
If you want to keep a very similar sound in the mid+bridge position, then you'll need to get a 4-wire pickup (the braid screen isn't normally considered a wire when counting the number of conductors). There are lots of great low-cost pickups availble these days from the likes of Tonerider and Iron Gear (and quite a few others) which come with 4-conductor wiring as standard which make them easier to integrate into your guitar.
I said that it's 'possible' to use the Harley Benton pickup with the Ibanez. That's because there's a 50/50 chance of the output being polarity inverted with respect to the existing Ibanez single coils.
The reality is that despite pickup manufacturers all talking about 'North' and 'South' coils and coil start and coil end wires as if these terms were fixed in stone, a lot of manufacturers have a different idea of what North and South is, and so if you mix two manufacturer's pickups together, you have a good chance of the signals being polarity inverted (typically but wrongly called 'out of phase') if you wire them up as per the manufacturer's wiring diagrams with respect to the ground and hot connections.
You are then gong to get a really thin sound when the pickups are used in combination (single pickup selection sound isn't affected at all). Whilst this can be interesting, the amount of times you'd actually use it is minimal, so is best left as an option selected via a switched pot or mini-toggle switch rather than as one of your main selection sounds.
You can normally fix this by swapping the hot and ground wire connections around on one or more of the pickups, but to be able to do so you need either 4-wire+screen humbuckers or two-wire (no screen) single coils. If you've got single wire + screen humbucker(s) and single wire + screen single coil(s), then you can't fix it by swapping the hot and ground wires over as the pickup shield wire has to go to signal ground, otherwise you'll get bad noise pickup on the guitar.
I think the Ibanez single coils are normally two-wire devices, so if you find the Harley Benton pickup is polarity reversed with respect to the middle single coil pickup, then you can simply swap the ground and hot connections over on both of the single coil pickups.
I don't know how experienced you are at soldering or wiring up guitar pickups. so this may sound quite daunting if you are inexperienced. Unlike on a Strat, where the pickups and controls are mounted on a scratchplate and it's easy to do the wiring outside the guitar, the pickups and controls are in separate cavities on the SA 260, so the wiring will probably have to be done in situ, which makes it a bit harder. You may be able to remove the pots and switch and mount them on a bit of cardboard whilst you solder, if there's enough extra length in the wires, which will make things easier.
Reliably fallible.
Reliably fallible.
Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
Is it about a bicycle?
Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
Can you suggest some decent pick ups for ibanez
I like play rock and some heavy metal .. i really like ibanez beside poor pick ups
I like play rock and some heavy metal .. i really like ibanez beside poor pick ups
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- JohannesKoskela
- Posts: 2 Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2023 9:46 am
Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
Pickups are a very personal thing and vary a lot in price and sound. And very few of us have had experience of more than a handful of replacement pickups, so any response you get is going to be very patchy.
How much do you want to pay? Paying a lot of money for a boutique pickup doesn't guarantee a 'better' sound over a lot of the cheaper brands, but it might get you closer to a particular pickup.
And which country are you in, as that may very well determine availability?
Are you looking for a fairly standard- or a high-output pickup? Standard are more versatile and generally sound better when used clean. Used with pedals, there's normally no rock to metal sound that you can't achieve.
High-powered pickups are great of you hardly ever play clean and are always using reasonable to heavy amounts of distortion, especially if you don't use pedals and get all your gain sounds from the amp (with maybe some delay, reverb and chorus in the effects loop). The extra windings used for these reduce the amount of treble and boost the mids from this type of pickup, so they sound pretty uninspiring (to me anyway) when used clean, but overdrive and distortion adds back in the high frequencies so it's not an issue there. Don't forget you've always got those four other positions for cleaner sounds.
One other benefit of higher-powered humbuckers is that the split single-coil sound is a lot more like a normal single-coil. Standard strength humbuckers can sound rather weak when split. But your current Ibanez doesn't have a straight single coil arrangement for the bridge as the split mode is only used together with the middle pickup.
One drawback when paired with two single coils is that very powerful bridge pickup can be much louder than the single coils when switching between selections. This is more of an issue when playing clean, as overdrive and distortion will compress the general levels and help cover up the difference in output. You can of course use compressor or clean boost pedals to help bring up the clean levels, or else switch amp channels, but it is something to consider if you often switch from the humbucker to single coils (and back) in songs.
And are you worried about having a slightly wider 'Fender' spacing for the pole pieces for the bridge pickup ('Trembucker spacing' in Seymour Duncan terms)? It's only around a 2mm difference, and practically it doesn't affect the sound but visually it's a better match for the strings. The Ibanez spacing is the same as Fender (as opposed to Gibson). Some manufacturers only do standard Gibson widths, sone offer both, whilst some make the bridge humbucker spacing somewhere between the two.
I'll give you some of my experiences with replacement humbuckers and maybe others will give you their experiences.
I've mentioned Iron Gear and Tonerider pickups before. They aren't as relatively cheap as they used to be, but I still think they are good value for money.
I've tried out a few of the Iron Gear humbucker range.
Of the standard strength pickups I've tried; Rolling Mill, Tesla Shark and Blues Engine, the Blues Engine is by far my favourite for a PAF-style pickup. http://www.irongear.co.uk/irongear_pickups_006.htm
I've replaced a few Gibson ceramic humbuckers with these on my guitars and they are a big improvement and sound really good both clean and distorted. I find the Rolling Mill a bit dull in comparison and the Tesla Shark (an Alnico II Slash Seymour Duncan-style pickup) a bit thin and flat sounding.
I fitted the Metal Machines on my kit Explorer build as it wasn't meant to be subtle. http://www.irongear.co.uk/irongear_pickups_034.htm
You definitely won't want to use these for pristine clean sounds, but they do very well indeed for all things overdriven rock and beyond. Lots of output for overdriving even what are normally clean inputs on an amp.
I know lots of people who've fitted Tonerider pickups, and none have shown any regrets. I've only used one, their Alnico IV classic, which is on the hotter side of the PAF style. https://tonerider.com/product/alnico-iv-classics/
I used this on an HSS MIDI Strat build for a friend (Arkieboy on this forum) and it balances very well with the two Bareknuckles single coils. He's very happy with the sound.
Otherwise my replacement humbuckers have either been Seymour Duncan or Bareknuckles.
I've only used a couple of Seymour Duncan humbuckers and I replaced the Seymour Duncan JB bridge pickup I paired with a Seymour Duncan Jazz in the neck (one of the 'classic' pairings, the other being a JB with a '59 neck) as I really didn't like the sound of the JB. Its a very love/hate pickup, but I think you're more likely to love it using it distortion than when used clean.
So whilst a Seymour Duncan JB https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/jb-model is a very popular choice of humbucker, it's not one for everyone.
Both Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio offer a huge range of pickups to chose from, a confusingly large range! I get lost looking through their web pages. In reality, a lot of the pickups will sound pretty similar, so you are probably best led by what you fancy trying.
The Bareknuckle Boot Camp range offers a choice of three humbucker powers https://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/pickups/bootcamp. They are just the same quality as the other Bare Knuckle pickups, but they make them in large batches (the others are all made to order) so save a lot in set-up time, which saves you some money. They still aren't cheap, but you get the same quality but without the wider choice of options their standard range pickup offers at a reduced price.
I've got Bare Knuckle Mules in my main les Paul, and they are lovely pickups. I expect the Bootcamp Old Guard humbuckers come closest to those whilst the True Grit would be more like a JB pickup and the Brute Force good for all-out rock/metal.
One other versatile hot pickup that my mate Max uses in the bridge position of all his Ibanez S-series guitars (and he has about 20 of them) is this Kent Armstrong Cool Rails M-bucker. https://www.wdmusic.com/kent-armstrong- ... tails.html. But in my opinion it really needs to be used with a custom switching arrangement to make the most of it. Even in the 'Cool' version, it has a sledgehammer output in full humbucker mode. I had a 'Hot' version Max fitted for me in an Ibanez RG But I found full series mode didn't really have any dynamics whatsoever. Parallel (rather than series) mode was better, and there were numerous other modes it could be set up or (there are four individual coils and each coil is provided with its own leads so a huge number of split and series or parallel ways it could be wired). Eventually I took I took it out and fitted a set of original Quantum pickups in it that Max gave to me in exchange.
Whilst I could provide lists of other pickups you could try you'll be limited by cost and availability. There will be lots of good affordable ones out there that I've never heard of to date, so don't think my list is anywhere near comprehensive. It's barely a start.
There's also the fact to consider that with a higher-end pickup you could be spending almost as much on a single pickup as the used value of the guitar. For me there are three main schools of thought here:
1. You may be better selling the guitar as it is and spending the extra pickup money to get a better used guitar with better pickups and overall build quality. Obviously check the specs of any prospective guitar as if you go for another Ibanez, you may end up with the same pickups!
2. It's not worth spending too much on a replacement pickup, so spend the bare minimum that will give you a sound that's more to your liking and requirements (I won't say 'better sound' as it's normally a pretty meaningless term unless you have a pickup that's barely working and/or highly microphonic).
3. Pickups are transferable, so as long as you keep the original pickup safe, fit whatever pickup you want and you can always fit it to your next guitar and put the old one back in the SA 260. Most people would say that 90%-95% of en electric guitar's tone will come from the pickups, so whilst you may get more from a really good pickup in a really good guitar, a really good pickup in am OK guitar will sound better than an OK pickup in an OK guitar.
Other things to consider are that if you spent £40 on a pickup and you didn't like it much, you could sell it on again for maybe £20-£25 and try a different £40 pickup and it's cost you £15-£20 for the experience. Buy a £200 pickup and it may cost you £40-£50 to do the same thing.
It really helps if you can do all the wiring and soldering yourself )or have a friend who is good at it and will do it for free or a beer). Paying a shop or luthier to take a pickup out and put a new one in could cost almost as much as the pickup. As they'll have to replace and remove strings they'll probably charge for that as well.
Plus, they might not be any good at it. I had a friend who got Andertons in the UK (who should know better) to fit a replacement bridge humbucker in his HSS Strat. When I finally got to check it out, not only was the humbucker wired for a permanently split coil that was always in circuit, regardless of switch position, it was wired reverse polarity to the two single coils so all the positions were thin and nasally. It didn't take me long to fix, but it should never have been sent out like that.
So it really pays to learn to solder well and learn a bit about pickup wiring, circuit diagrams and switching options as that can both save you money and allow you to try different switching options if you feel the need.
How much do you want to pay? Paying a lot of money for a boutique pickup doesn't guarantee a 'better' sound over a lot of the cheaper brands, but it might get you closer to a particular pickup.
And which country are you in, as that may very well determine availability?
Are you looking for a fairly standard- or a high-output pickup? Standard are more versatile and generally sound better when used clean. Used with pedals, there's normally no rock to metal sound that you can't achieve.
High-powered pickups are great of you hardly ever play clean and are always using reasonable to heavy amounts of distortion, especially if you don't use pedals and get all your gain sounds from the amp (with maybe some delay, reverb and chorus in the effects loop). The extra windings used for these reduce the amount of treble and boost the mids from this type of pickup, so they sound pretty uninspiring (to me anyway) when used clean, but overdrive and distortion adds back in the high frequencies so it's not an issue there. Don't forget you've always got those four other positions for cleaner sounds.
One other benefit of higher-powered humbuckers is that the split single-coil sound is a lot more like a normal single-coil. Standard strength humbuckers can sound rather weak when split. But your current Ibanez doesn't have a straight single coil arrangement for the bridge as the split mode is only used together with the middle pickup.
One drawback when paired with two single coils is that very powerful bridge pickup can be much louder than the single coils when switching between selections. This is more of an issue when playing clean, as overdrive and distortion will compress the general levels and help cover up the difference in output. You can of course use compressor or clean boost pedals to help bring up the clean levels, or else switch amp channels, but it is something to consider if you often switch from the humbucker to single coils (and back) in songs.
And are you worried about having a slightly wider 'Fender' spacing for the pole pieces for the bridge pickup ('Trembucker spacing' in Seymour Duncan terms)? It's only around a 2mm difference, and practically it doesn't affect the sound but visually it's a better match for the strings. The Ibanez spacing is the same as Fender (as opposed to Gibson). Some manufacturers only do standard Gibson widths, sone offer both, whilst some make the bridge humbucker spacing somewhere between the two.
I'll give you some of my experiences with replacement humbuckers and maybe others will give you their experiences.
I've mentioned Iron Gear and Tonerider pickups before. They aren't as relatively cheap as they used to be, but I still think they are good value for money.
I've tried out a few of the Iron Gear humbucker range.
Of the standard strength pickups I've tried; Rolling Mill, Tesla Shark and Blues Engine, the Blues Engine is by far my favourite for a PAF-style pickup. http://www.irongear.co.uk/irongear_pickups_006.htm
I've replaced a few Gibson ceramic humbuckers with these on my guitars and they are a big improvement and sound really good both clean and distorted. I find the Rolling Mill a bit dull in comparison and the Tesla Shark (an Alnico II Slash Seymour Duncan-style pickup) a bit thin and flat sounding.
I fitted the Metal Machines on my kit Explorer build as it wasn't meant to be subtle. http://www.irongear.co.uk/irongear_pickups_034.htm
You definitely won't want to use these for pristine clean sounds, but they do very well indeed for all things overdriven rock and beyond. Lots of output for overdriving even what are normally clean inputs on an amp.
I know lots of people who've fitted Tonerider pickups, and none have shown any regrets. I've only used one, their Alnico IV classic, which is on the hotter side of the PAF style. https://tonerider.com/product/alnico-iv-classics/
I used this on an HSS MIDI Strat build for a friend (Arkieboy on this forum) and it balances very well with the two Bareknuckles single coils. He's very happy with the sound.
Otherwise my replacement humbuckers have either been Seymour Duncan or Bareknuckles.
I've only used a couple of Seymour Duncan humbuckers and I replaced the Seymour Duncan JB bridge pickup I paired with a Seymour Duncan Jazz in the neck (one of the 'classic' pairings, the other being a JB with a '59 neck) as I really didn't like the sound of the JB. Its a very love/hate pickup, but I think you're more likely to love it using it distortion than when used clean.
So whilst a Seymour Duncan JB https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/jb-model is a very popular choice of humbucker, it's not one for everyone.
Both Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio offer a huge range of pickups to chose from, a confusingly large range! I get lost looking through their web pages. In reality, a lot of the pickups will sound pretty similar, so you are probably best led by what you fancy trying.
The Bareknuckle Boot Camp range offers a choice of three humbucker powers https://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/pickups/bootcamp. They are just the same quality as the other Bare Knuckle pickups, but they make them in large batches (the others are all made to order) so save a lot in set-up time, which saves you some money. They still aren't cheap, but you get the same quality but without the wider choice of options their standard range pickup offers at a reduced price.
I've got Bare Knuckle Mules in my main les Paul, and they are lovely pickups. I expect the Bootcamp Old Guard humbuckers come closest to those whilst the True Grit would be more like a JB pickup and the Brute Force good for all-out rock/metal.
One other versatile hot pickup that my mate Max uses in the bridge position of all his Ibanez S-series guitars (and he has about 20 of them) is this Kent Armstrong Cool Rails M-bucker. https://www.wdmusic.com/kent-armstrong- ... tails.html. But in my opinion it really needs to be used with a custom switching arrangement to make the most of it. Even in the 'Cool' version, it has a sledgehammer output in full humbucker mode. I had a 'Hot' version Max fitted for me in an Ibanez RG But I found full series mode didn't really have any dynamics whatsoever. Parallel (rather than series) mode was better, and there were numerous other modes it could be set up or (there are four individual coils and each coil is provided with its own leads so a huge number of split and series or parallel ways it could be wired). Eventually I took I took it out and fitted a set of original Quantum pickups in it that Max gave to me in exchange.
Whilst I could provide lists of other pickups you could try you'll be limited by cost and availability. There will be lots of good affordable ones out there that I've never heard of to date, so don't think my list is anywhere near comprehensive. It's barely a start.
There's also the fact to consider that with a higher-end pickup you could be spending almost as much on a single pickup as the used value of the guitar. For me there are three main schools of thought here:
1. You may be better selling the guitar as it is and spending the extra pickup money to get a better used guitar with better pickups and overall build quality. Obviously check the specs of any prospective guitar as if you go for another Ibanez, you may end up with the same pickups!
2. It's not worth spending too much on a replacement pickup, so spend the bare minimum that will give you a sound that's more to your liking and requirements (I won't say 'better sound' as it's normally a pretty meaningless term unless you have a pickup that's barely working and/or highly microphonic).
3. Pickups are transferable, so as long as you keep the original pickup safe, fit whatever pickup you want and you can always fit it to your next guitar and put the old one back in the SA 260. Most people would say that 90%-95% of en electric guitar's tone will come from the pickups, so whilst you may get more from a really good pickup in a really good guitar, a really good pickup in am OK guitar will sound better than an OK pickup in an OK guitar.
Other things to consider are that if you spent £40 on a pickup and you didn't like it much, you could sell it on again for maybe £20-£25 and try a different £40 pickup and it's cost you £15-£20 for the experience. Buy a £200 pickup and it may cost you £40-£50 to do the same thing.
It really helps if you can do all the wiring and soldering yourself )or have a friend who is good at it and will do it for free or a beer). Paying a shop or luthier to take a pickup out and put a new one in could cost almost as much as the pickup. As they'll have to replace and remove strings they'll probably charge for that as well.
Plus, they might not be any good at it. I had a friend who got Andertons in the UK (who should know better) to fit a replacement bridge humbucker in his HSS Strat. When I finally got to check it out, not only was the humbucker wired for a permanently split coil that was always in circuit, regardless of switch position, it was wired reverse polarity to the two single coils so all the positions were thin and nasally. It didn't take me long to fix, but it should never have been sent out like that.
So it really pays to learn to solder well and learn a bit about pickup wiring, circuit diagrams and switching options as that can both save you money and allow you to try different switching options if you feel the need.
Reliably fallible.
Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
What a truly excellent post Wonks. That should be required reading for new guitarists before venturing into the free-for-all that is most of the Internet and social media.
I've fitted and used a couple of hundred pickups since the 1980's. It is a very subjective and personal topic and also depends a lot on guitar setup and the guitar itself.
I've used and liked Tonerider, Iron Gear, SD, DiMarzio and a few boutique pickups. I had an SA260 but sold it after a short while. The mediocre pickups was one reason for that. It was nicely finished and played okay. I'm sure a good pickup (or set) fitted correctly would improve it immensely. You should consider trying two or three different types (buying used perhaps) to find out what you like in that guitar.
I've fitted and used a couple of hundred pickups since the 1980's. It is a very subjective and personal topic and also depends a lot on guitar setup and the guitar itself.
I've used and liked Tonerider, Iron Gear, SD, DiMarzio and a few boutique pickups. I had an SA260 but sold it after a short while. The mediocre pickups was one reason for that. It was nicely finished and played okay. I'm sure a good pickup (or set) fitted correctly would improve it immensely. You should consider trying two or three different types (buying used perhaps) to find out what you like in that guitar.
Reliably fallible.
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- Drew Stephenson
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Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
I pick noses.
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- Folderol
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Re: Ibanez sa 260 change pick up
The humbucker pickup post from Wonks should be a sticky (toffee pudding lol).
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- tea for two
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