Stacked Single-Coil Pickups Good?

Quote from Pobinr

I'm getting hum a problem with my strat. Has anyone tried stacked humbuckers & are they as bright as normal single coil & do they stop hum ?

Hmm, a matter of preferences. They stop hum but OTOH they don't sound as bright and open as SC's

They are HBs. It's just the shape that changes, for those who own say a Strato.

It depends on the brand. There are many noiseless SC pups available. I use Dimarzio Area pups and I challenge anyone to identify them as noiseless by listening in a musical context....other than the lack of hum. There are differences but I've heard as much difference between various true SC pups as well.

If you use high gain tones, then the him can be intolerable in certain environments. Noiseless pups solve this 100%. If you use shimmering clean and glassy fender tones, it won't matter as much and YOU will hear the most difference. Your audience won't know apart from the dead silence.

Humbuckers can be wired as parallel or serial configuration. Either way stops hum, but serial is the classic humbucker sound, while parallel sounds much more like single coils. I would imagine stacked singles would either give you 4 wires, so you can choose, or they are pre-wired in one of the two configurations, depending on if they are marketed as providing single-coil or humbucker tone, but that's going to be semantics.

Have you shielded all your guitar cavities with copper tape ? It can do miracles.

I have a Seymour Duncan hot rails in my lone star strat. It's just like a humbucker. I can flick a switch and it sounds like a single.

It won't sound exactly like a single coil, but then again, it won't be drastically different. The idea behind those stacked single coils is to eliminate hum. I would go ahead and do it. But before you do, try out that suggestion of lining your electronics cavity with copper foil. Might eliminate your problem and you'll not have to spend on an upgrade. Merry Christmas!

I had Fender SCN's and DiMarzio Areas ('58 & '67) for years. They're both pretty good, but i liked Areas more. IMHO Areas are closer to a decent single coil, 'though they can be little too treble-heavy for some. All that said, nowadays i use Lollar Blondes in my HSS Strat (w/ Haussel VIN+ in bridge), and they are really good. They are also fairly silent for real SC's.

If money is not an option, i would probably opt for Ilitch Noise Cancelling System.

Merry Christmas to all.

Kemper fi,

Pentti