Genuine Low Impedance Pickups

GuyBoden

Are genuine low impedance pickups a good idea?

low impedance (Low Z) pickups could be plugged straight into the mixing desk without the need for an impedance matching device (DI box)

There would be less interference in long Cable runs.

The big problem is that Low Z pickups would have a different resonant frequency, wide frequency sound, so a different sound.

Historically, I believed the reason guitar's have High impedance pickups was to match the fact that Valve amps have high impedance.

Les Paul used genuine Low Z pickups in his personal guitars.

(I don't consider EMG or Alumitone as Low Z, because they are designed to imitate High Z pickups.)

jpfamps

I think historically pickups were high impedance simply because you needed to get enough signal for the amp to amplify and that required more turns on the bobbin and hence a higher impedance.

The input impedance of a valve amp can be low or high, so this is not an issue.

Back in the day valves were expensive, so a hotter signal would require less gain, and hence less valves.

Low impedance pickups aren't a free lunch: output is low so more gain is required, and although less noise is induced into the pickup, the extra gain means that amplifier noise starts to become an issue.

GuyBoden

jpfamps said:

I think historically pickups were high impedance simply because you needed to get enough signal for the amp to amplify and that required more turns on the bobbin and hence a higher impedance.

The input impedance of a valve amp can be low or high, so this is not an issue.

Back in the day valves were expensive, so a hotter signal would require less gain, and hence less valves.

Low impedance pickups aren't a free lunch: output is low so more gain is required, and although less noise is induced into the pickup, the extra gain means that amplifier noise starts to become an issue.

I don't think that noise would be a big issue using modern solid state amps, but yes, Valve amps would be more noisy with low signal input voltage, that's one of the reasons why valve amps have a relatively high signal input voltage.