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I think I do marginally prefer the tone without, but I would trade that for the ability to use the guitar in some of the noisy venues I've played in any time...
The difference is caused by the magnetic interaction between the pickups - it makes more of a difference with P90s, even when they're much more widely separated in something like a Les Paul Special, because a P90 has a very powerful sideways magnetic field that extends a long way from the pickup.
But I also did the same sort of magnet-flip/rewire on a Rickenbacker bass and it made no difference to the sound whatever. These pickups have ceramic magnets with a very tight up/down field.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
For me, I replaced a non-RW Irish Tour middle pickup with a hum cancelling one. Personally, I didn’t hear any difference.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I'm not refined enough to notice a difference except in the 2 and 4 positions where the very absence of hum seems to emphasise the difference in sound from 1, 3 and 5.
The problem comes when you have to play in a venue where the background noise is so bad that a single coil becomes unusable - I've been in a couple like that... and I don't mean just slightly annoying when you're not playing, or fixable with a noise suppressor - where the noise is as loud as the signal if you use any kind of overdrive or distortion. Having done that I now wouldn't have a gigging instrument that didn't have at least one hum-cancelling setting on it - in fact all mine have either side-by-side or stacked humbuckers now, even though they're all theoretically 'single coil'.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein