Love My New Ants!

[angus99]

I just installed a set of SD's in my '94 USA Strat Plus: Antiquity Surfers in the neck & middle and a Texas Hot Custom in the bridge. All I can say is "holy ****"! Previously, I was playing stock Gold Lace Sensors through a Rivera M60 and C212 cab. I could get very good cleans but the Strat's distortion had come to sound a bit hollow, grinding and thin to me. (It had to be the Sensors I didn't like because the humbuckers on my 335 are plenty full and complex through the same rig & the Strat was anemic through other amps as well.) The new Ants are just amazing--the cleans are even richer and more chimey, while channel 1 is fuller, thicker and more varied with a deeper bottom and more punch. Biggest surprise was how responsive the controls are with this new set. With the gold lace sensors, I could dial a lot and it just seemed to muffle or brighten what was coming out. The Ants make the controls REALLY responsive with a huge range of tonal variation. Rolling back the Strat's volume finally gets me that natural breakup point I've been looking for.

I was a little intimidated about swapping out pups myself, but after getting some great help on this forum and watching the SD video, installing them was ridiculously easy.

Finally, my wife bought these for me for Christmas from Lewguitar. Great guy, great support, great price. Great way to start 2008.

Happy New Year!

angus

[Lazarus1140]

Cool, congratulations. How do they compare with the stock PUs for output?

[angus99]

the ants are slightly hotter--6.3 vs 5.8 for the sensors.

only thing i'm not sure about is adjusting the height. the pole pieces are staggered above the body at significantly different heights (maybe an eighth of an inch) and i don't know if they're supposed to be adjusted individually or if i should just stick to the gross adjustments on either end of the pup.

thnx

angus

[loudriver23]

Very cool Angus!
I too am starting off 2K8 the same way. I got a new strat and am having a tech install that exact setup along with some neck/bridge/intonation settings. Your review is most exciting and exactly what I'm hoping to achieve with my own setup.
ROCK OUT BROTHER!!!

[telejonze]

I want to do the same thing: replace the TX specials in my strat with Ant Surfers neck and middle, and Texas Hot bridge. I noticed in the specs that the Surfers have southern polarity while the Texas Hot has north. I'm assuming everything works well with regard to phasing, or else you guys would have mentioned it. What about RW/RP?
thanks.

[Gearjoneser]

Seymour and most pickup makers know that the perfect specs for single coil pickups have been found. Others like Lace and EMG think there's somewhere to go. Unfortunately, it always ends up sounding worse than the real formula.

[disturb]

Love my Texas Hot strat set