The “Patent Applied For” sound can be very subjective and to me, some PAF’s sound O.K. and some sound great. It has much to do with the instrument the pickups are in and the adjustment. The tone of the pickup has much to do with the coil, magnet, position, adjustment, string gauge, DC resistance, number of turns, tolerance of magnet wire in the coil, lubrication of magnet wire for layering, tension, ohms per 1,000 feet, number of turns per layer, the number of layers, the materials, cover, studs, potentiometers, capacitors, resonant of wood, frets, fingerboard density and cable to the amplifier.