Iron Gear Strat pickups - any good?

paulnb57

Has anyone on here used Iron Gear single coils in a Strat, what do you think? Any good, would you buy them again? Paul

TTony

I'd buy the Oil City Stone Tones ...

@theGuitarWeasel knows what he's doing with a pickup winder.

RedRabbit

I've got the IronGears (Pig Irons?)in my partscaster and like them - nice and clear without being thin.

However, if I was to buy again I'd be looking at something from Oil City.  The humbuckers I've had from Ash are superb and I'm lead to believe that, if anything, his single coils are even better.

TamDB

I hope they`re at least half decent as i`ve just bought a set of Pig Irons for a build that i`m doing, ( when I get the rest of the bits together and a bit of time to myself  

The P90 Alchemist is pretty good IMHO.

Adam_MD

TTony;291173" said:

I'd buy the Oil City Stone Tones ...

@theGuitarWeasel knows what he's doing with a pickup winder.

Or the triple blues, excellent pickups.

Jez6345789

I have heard good reports about these but I think it's more the price performance ratio that attracts. "Made outside of the UK in state-of-the-art facilities. Every pickup is put through rigourous quality control procedures to ensure that it complies with IronGear's exacting specifications. Appropriate and careful use is made of automated manufacturing procedures to ensure that costs are minimised and consistencey is kept to an absolute maximum. Basically Far East made pickups with a bit of branding mojo. Personally for strats I would go for hand wound that's the way classic strats were made and it's that human factor that makes the difference. I would give OCP a call. For certain situations cnc controlled are better but even automated winders for things like humbuckers had endless variations from machine to machine when it came to building back in the 50/60's Regards jez

monquixote

I've got some Iron Gears in a Strat. 

They are good, but not at the same level that Oil City or Bulldog produce.

guitarmangler

I've got a set of entwistle pickups in a strat . I think they were something crazy like £30 for a set from eBay ! Sound as good as my wizard pickups in my bravewood strat.

martinw

I had some Texas Locos in a Strat recently. They were excellent, especially for the price.

thomasw88

I've got a set of pig irons, and they hold up to all the other pickups I've owned, and I was a pickup junkie for a number of years.

ThePrettyDamned

They're good for the price, but it really is worth saving up a bit more for oil city, bulldog, mojo etc. They're not hideously expensive, and they're as good as pickups get.

Iron gear have gone up in price a fair old wad since a couple of years ago, so while they're good, they're not that much cheaper really.

Jez6345789

Hi I don't want to say you can't get good budget pickups these days. I have a couple of real nice gold hot pafs from Gfs which sound nothing like a Paf but do sound nice for blues and give a real mellow sound with not a lot of top end or bite. What I sought of object to is the over done inverse snobbery type of marketing and the smudging of technical details to fit what the factory makes. So for example the Texas loco model, it alludes and even mentions SRv in the marketing. I am doing this from memory but ISTR that the pickups in No1 were actually pretty stock 5.something k wound with heavy formvar, with neck pickup being actually the hottest. When fender made the Texas specials they tried using thinner gauge wire probably to increase output and give a mid range hump and less top to mimic Srv's use of a tube screamer. These days most people make a so called Texas pickup on the back of what was a big seller back in the day for Fender and in reality the young and nieve would love to get a bit of the Stevie sound for a pickup change. Ultimately the Iron Gear neither recreates the thinner wire over wound fender or the lower wound 59 Formvar of SRV's number one. From their spec they are just over wound with modern 44 awg and Alnico 5. If you like the sound and the price is a lot less than an accurate 59 recreation then fine but you are unlikely to find Armadillo crushing SRV tone. Probably just a bit more output than standard squires and less top. Rant mode off YMMV

asimmd

Go Oil City,I have them in my Strat and Tele,can't fault them.

DrBob

If you're on a really tight budget I'd suggest Ironstones.
They're not Mojo/OilCity good but they are far better than a £30 set of Strat pickups has any right to be.

nickp

at the risk of sounding boring - I have oil city pups and can't fault them - nice and hot but lovely open sound.  the tech who set the strat up works from here and is good - http://www.waghornguitars.com/ - commented how good they were.

can't say better than that