Budget dog ear P90

roberty

A friend of mine is looking to upgrade a cheap epi junior. Any recommendations for a budget dog ear P90? The Wilkinson ones seem way too cheap (£13!)

pintspiller

I got a no-name used one on eBay years ago. I think it's great.

I think it may be Artec/Guitar Fetish.

Kittyfrisk

Wilkinson may be good value, but they are solid performers.
I have a Fret King DBC Eclat with a Wilkinson P90 & it is an absolutely marvellous sounding pickup.
Also Entwistle P90's, again, don't get too hung up on the highest price = best.
After all, its for an experiment 

Funkfingers

PRS SE uses G&B P90s. Presumably, G&B makes dogear versions.

If you or your friend are handy with a soldering iron, it is possible to swap the coil and magnets of a soapbar replacement pickup onto the baseplate of the stock Epiphone dogear unit.

For what it is worth, if the pickup cavity is deep enough, it might be possible to squeeze a stacked coils Soapbar pickup under the existing dogear cover. Compressible foam at the bottom of the cavity would hold the pickup in position.

10thumbs

I got a Vanson , it' generic cheap and Chinese

bully

Kittyfrisk said:

Wilkinson may be good value, but they are solid performers.
I have a Fret King DBC Eclat with a Wilkinson P90 & it is an absolutely marvellous sounding pickup.
Also Entwistle P90's, again, don't get too hung up on the highest price = best.
After all, its for an experiment 

I have Entwhistle p90s - I adore them, I've actually thrown a couple in an old squire as a really good upgrade.

Honestly Wilkinson and Entwhistle both come across very under-priced for me compared to the quality drop I've found when you only take a few quid off (the sort of rebrand/no name territory I guess). But for the OP - you really cant go far wrong with the wilkinson product, at the price

roberty

Thanks all. Couldn't find some of these suggestions in dog ear profile (soap bar only) but the artecs come in dog ear and have alnico magnets so I've recommended this :-) 

Jonathangus

@Alegree does some in his Old Timer range: https://www.alegree.co.uk/collections/old-timer-pickups

Funkfingers

Good shout, Batman.

The “Sharp” version for loud/brash ceramic magnet power. The “smooth” version for Alnico musicality. 9k/A2 should do nicely. Swapping one of the bar magnets to A5 would liven things up.

Jonathangus

Funkfingers said:

Good shout, Batman.

The “Sharp” version for loud/brash ceramic magnet power. The “smooth” version for Alnico musicality. 9k/A2 should do nicely. Swapping one of the bar magnets to A5 would liven things up.

The 'Sharp' are A5, not ceramic.

I should add, I've never tried either.

roberty

Jonathangus said:

Funkfingers said:

Good shout, Batman.

The “Sharp” version for loud/brash ceramic magnet power. The “smooth” version for Alnico musicality. 9k/A2 should do nicely. Swapping one of the bar magnets to A5 would liven things up.

The 'Sharp' are A5, not ceramic.

I should add, I've never tried either.

Awesome thanks

Jez6345789

I think the golden rule with budget pickups is are they roughly built like the thing they are pretending to be.

i have an old wilkinson p90 wound to 7.8k two correctly sized alnico magnets. So a fairly Vanilla p90. 

I replaced it it with a Fralin which is clearer and more detailed but little to really choose between them so that era Wilkinson is a sensible budget alternative last time I looked I think they upped the winding we’re using shorter ceramic magnets and much less like a classic p90.

so worth digging into the specs as these things change I like Wilkinson stuff but it is sometimes these days of varying spec. If you want a hot p90 then it’s probably fine.

Again Entwhistle a while ago was using smaller neodymium in a lot of pickups now seems to be back to Alnico and ceramic 

sawyer

Do irongear still do a p90? They decent on a budget.

stratntele

I've got 2 Strats one with Fender custom shop pickups and the other with Iron Gear pickups. Guess which sounds better to me? Yup thats right the Iron Gear one!!

Jonathangus

sawyer said:

Do irongear still do a p90? They decent on a budget.

They do, but soapbar only.

bully

stratntele said:

I've got 2 Strats one with Fender custom shop pickups and the other with Iron Gear pickups. Guess which sounds better to me? Yup thats right the Iron Gear one!!

I want to try out the Irongear pickups, heard a couple of different people mention them now.

sawyer

They are great. Used them in 3 guitar builds so far,and would not hesitate to use them again.