Brought home a Black Top today.

[stingx]

I FINALLY got to play one in a local GC and I spent over an hour wailing on it. Was a black with maple neck Strat. I enjoyed playing it and it felt and sounded awfully good. I have three Strats already and need another one like I need to grow tits...

[Katastrophe]

Dude, where ya been! Good to see you posting again.

[ZMAN]

Well I fianlly got a response form Jeff Krause at Fender. The Blacktops do have Duncan Desing pickups. The Jazzmasters do not have the covers the others do. The specs are the same.
101n Neck 6.85 A5 magnet.
101B Bridge 12.04 A5 magnets.
So we can safely say they will sound pretty damn good.

[MAXIFUNK]

Well I fianlly got a response form Jeff Krause at Fender. The Blacktops do have Duncan Desing pickups. The Jazzmasters do not have the covers the others do. The specs are the same.
101n Neck 6.85 A5 magnet.
101B Bridge 12.04 A5 magnets.
So we can safely say they will sound pretty damn good.

Zman educate me if you can please what exactly does the A5 mean to me is the a normal magnet size?

[Geraint Jones]

Maxi, I'm guessing it refers to Alnico 5 magnets , you may already have them in your pups.

[Eric***]

Zman educate me if you can please what exactly does the A5 mean to me is the a normal magnet size?

That's the type of magnet in a pickup. IIRC, pickup magnets come as alnico (an aluminum, nickel, cobalt alloy), ceramic, and rare earth. Most are ceramic (cheaper, brighter/harsher) and alnico.

Within those types, the various magnet types have different strength. I think the order, from weakest to strongest, goes like this:

ceramic 8
alnico 4
alnico 3
alnico 2
alnico 5
ceramic 5

So when he says A5, he's saying the magnet in the pickup is alnico 5, which is probably the most common magnet to use in a pickup. Each of them have their relative advantages and disadvantages.

If I'm wrong on any of this, please feel free to correct me. Otherwise, I hope that helps.

[ZMAN]

Sorry, I just thought everyone knew that one. Alnico V, or Alnico 5. Some of the CVs have Alnico 3s in them.
You are correct Eric.

[MAXIFUNK]

Sorry, I just thought everyone knew that one. Alnico V, or Alnico 5. Some of the CVs have Alnico 3s in them.
You are correct Eric.

No need to be sorry I was being a little dense and did not correlate Alnico 5 to A5. It was a long day at work I guess. thanks for answer guys.

[Duffy]

It is interesting to know they are AlNiCo 5 humbuckers. They sure sound super good in my Black Top strat with maple fretboard an black body. The glossy black and chrome finish makes it sound that much better.

This strat sounds so good I might get one of the telecasters with a maple fretboard. I have played the candy apple red Blacktop tele with maple board several times, but I think I like the black or grey versions better. Hard to say though because that red one with the beautiful maple neck and fretboard is really really nice looking and sounds great.

The only thing I noticed so far on my strat is the tuners are not really smooth, especially with the string off - you can feel the roughness in them. Some Fender locking tuners would work great and probably drop right in.

There must be a reason why Fender doesn't openly advertize the pickups as Duncan Designed. This is not a bad thing. Duncan Designed pickups sound great in many guitars. Plus they make a lot of different duncan designed pickups, to a lot of differing specifications. Maybe they just contracted out the pickups to Seymour Duncan and requested that the SD markings not be on them.

Anyway, I'm glad they put the Seymour Duncan designed ones on there instead of the ones Fender has designed. Personally I think they sound better and these are standard size humbuckers that can be upgraded without any problem with a huge number of other standard size humbuckers available everywhere.

Mine are staying in because I think they sound very good and do everything I want them to do. The tone is excellent and the sound comes out of the amp with a characteristic special tone that is very satisfying, clean and overdriven.

[ZMAN]

It is interesting to know they are AlNiCo 5 humbuckers. They sure sound super good in my Black Top strat with maple fretboard an black body. The glossy black and chrome finish makes it sound that much better.

This strat sounds so good I might get one of the telecasters with a maple fretboard. I have played the candy apple red Blacktop tele with maple board several times, but I think I like the black or grey versions better. Hard to say though because that red one with the beautiful maple neck and fretboard is really really nice looking and sounds great.

The only thing I noticed so far on my strat is the tuners are not really smooth, especially with the string off - you can feel the roughness in them. Some Fender locking tuners would work great and probably drop right in.

There must be a reason why Fender doesn't openly advertize the pickups as Duncan Designed. This is not a bad thing. Duncan Designed pickups sound great in many guitars. Plus they make a lot of different duncan designed pickups, to a lot of differing specifications. Maybe they just contracted out the pickups to Seymour Duncan and requested that the SD markings not be on them.

Anyway, I'm glad they put the Seymour Duncan designed ones on there instead of the ones Fender has designed. Personally I think they sound better and these are standard size humbuckers that can be upgraded without any problem with a huge number of other standard size humbuckers available everywhere.

Mine are staying in because I think they sound very good and do everything I want them to do. The tone is excellent and the sound comes out of the amp with a characteristic special tone that is very satisfying, clean and overdriven.

When I first emailed them Jeff said they were Asian pickups. That was all he knew. Apparently they are the same pickups across the Black top line, except that the Jazzmaster has open coils. Now the actual pickup specs that he gave me were for a JM101n and B. Those are for the Jazzmaster.
I mentioned that I had asked for the Strat pickups and he said "They are the same specs for all the guitars across the Blacktop line. The Jazzmaster just doesn’t have the cover on it…"
I also mentioned that in today's guitar market the buyers are very aware of pickup types, DC resistance, and where the pickups are made. I think that it would be detrimental to a guitar to have the pickups described as "Asian hot Alnico pickups" . As compared to Duncan Design Alnico 5 101 pickups .
Also it took him a week to find out. He had to email the Ensenada plant for the specs.
Jeff is based in Arizona.
I have three sets of DD pickups in Fender guitars. I have two Deluxes with single coils, and an Esprit with Hbs and they all sound killer. So I think is it a plus. This should quiet the "mod" factor with these guitars because they will sound really good as they are.

[Duffy]

I agree Zman, these pickups sound so good that I think a lot of buyers will be satisfied and leave the original pickups in, unless they have a certain requirement that the stock pups won't fill. I would have a hard time finding better sounding pickups I think. It seems to hang with my top of the line Seymour's.

I'm playing a lot of guitars lately comparing tone, expecially telecasters. I'm sorting out my favorite ones and may sell some of the ones that I don't have need of. I'm cautious about this because of all the stories I've heard from people who are really sorry they sold such and such guitars.

The Blacktops jumped up in price by the way, at some of the big internet places, to 521.21. That is over seventy dollars and I think this will be the way the prices will go on these great guitars very soon. After all, they are less than the MIM standards.

[ZMAN]

I had a price from my local guy at 479 Can. If it goes up I will not buy it. We still don't have any stock here yet so it looks like it is off the list.
I have a ton of HB guitars anyway. At least I know what pickups are in it. LOL

[Duffy]

More info on the Blacktop tele.

I was in the store the other day and a real good player was hitting some great country style licks on a Jim Adkins semi hollow P90 tele, a great tele in its own right.

I pointed out the new Blacktop candy apple red maple board tele on the wall and told him it was new and a lot of people are talking about it. He grabbed it and started hitting it with some heavy country chicken pickin' type playing and it sounded WAY like a traditional tele, believe it or not. Then they say "tone is in your fingers", I believe it. That guy could have played in any country band with that Blacktop tele, and sounded great.

Even though the Blacktop tele isn't a traditional tele, it's an awesome one and not far off the mark of some of the humbucker teles you see.

This is, of course, a different animal from the CV tele's and only a few more dollars. Even though I play a lot of single coils, have my Nashville tele out right now, there is something about that smooth full quiet tone of the humbuckers that has its own enchanting sound.

I would say to definitely check it out at the GC when you go to pay for your CVC. If you prefer the Blacktop, it is only a few more dollars. I'm not sure how that goes, switching up at GC on an order, but if they are making money I don't suppose they would complain at all. On the other hand, that CVC is an awesome double bound looking antique burst tele. A double bound Fender like that is around 1500 plus, or more.

One thing I like about the Blacktop tele is that it has the modern tuners with the securing nut, not the vintage tuners with the press in sleeves on top of the headstock. All the vintage guitars seem to have them push in sleeves instead of securing nuts.

Anyway, in the hands of a real good player, the Blacktop tele sounds like a real nice tele with real good tele tone.

I wouldn't be surprised if the prices on these go up. Some places are already charging over 470. So 449 at GC is still a good price. And I have a fifteen percent off coupon for Woodwinds and WB's, plus free shipping. I could get a Fender for the price of a nice Squier.

[sunvalleylaw]

Good info! I will check it out when I go in.