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This is my first post here so go easy on me. I'm very interested in the new STK-S4. I have read all the threads concerning this pickup and I have a few comments and questions. Lewguitar has stated that he feels these pickups cop 85% of the true single coil vibe. quot;The guy who invented Firequot; preferred them to Kinmans, Lawrence L280 and the older (lame) Fender vintage noiseless. To me these are slightly contradictory observations. I owned a set of Lawrence L280's and I feel they already had 85% of the vintage vibe. I missed the other 15% and I sold them (I currently use SS1's). I recently tried the new Fender SCN pickups (designed by Lawrence) and found them to be much closer - maybe 90% of the way. I would put the latest efforts of Kinman, Dimarzio and Lawrence in the 90-95% range. My observation is if the S4's sound more authentic than Kinmans they should cop AT LEAST 95% of the vintage tone. When I hear the mids are quot;thickerquot; and the highs are quot;warmerquot; I start to think of all the shortcomings of the other noiseless strat pickups I've heard. In particular, none of them I tried had the right amount of sparkle, or they didn't have enough quack when combined, or the neck pickup was lacking that specific combination of warm bass, hollow mids and treble sheen that I love so dearly. So whats the scoop? Do they provide authentic sparkle, quack, percussive attack and any other adjective that can be used to describe a good single coil? Are these pickups really a step above whats already available?

welcome to the forum!!

it all depends on your ears, and lew has a great set.

the new stacks arent out yet so most people havent tried them. i tried the older quot;nunoquot; version and it was good but the new versions are supposed to be better, or closer to a vintage type tone.
if you think the scn pups are 90% there thats great, these should be even better!!

personally i dont care for the fender offerings all that much.