$350 Lollar PAF pickups versus $35 Chinese copies

Artec is made in Korea.
Is it true that the pickups don't have the same magnets?
How is that an even test? It isn't.

I like the green shirt ones, they're much better.

A: Lollar, B: Guitar Madness

Blue shirt.

I liked the blue shirt set better.

I haven’t seen a reveal but it’s easy to tell that the green shirt is the Lollards because he was wearing a green shirt in the intro and the lazy in all of us says he went straight to recording the Lollars, then by the time the swap occurred it was another day so, of course, new shirt.

But really, the cheap set was every bit as good.

The articulation of the green shirt with the clarity of the blue shirt.
The green shirt ones sound a tad overwound with a stronger magnet while the blue shirt one had less windings and a weaker magnet, as an Alnico 2 would do.

I like the green's clean and overdriven sounds.
At high gain, there's not big difference in my opinion.
Very nice comparison video.

Blue. Reveal please?

Blue shirt Lollars... Smoother, does not have the edgy chime of the green shirt, however l am shocked at how good the $35 set is!

Green-shirt was louder. Other than that, I couldn't tell the difference. I've been looking at some Lollar's. With the higher price comes higher expectations and higher scrutiny, which means greater satisfaction when the product exceeds the expectation. With a $30 set of eBay pickups, I could buy them or not buy them and not notice a difference. Maybe I would put them on a Squier to see if they fit my playing needs before investing in the real deal.

Green 350$

Blue sounded like alnico 2 and green like alnico 5.

I preferred blue. Spongier softer bass, slightly attenuated highs.
Green too much top and bottom and overly compressed which is not what I want from a humbucker.

SO which were which???

Is the answer posted anywhere?

Where's the reveal?

So what is what here?

Like others... where do I go to get the reveal????

And the reveal is.......??????

Answer?

Nice Comparison, the green shirt definitely had better separation of notes and clarity at any level. Lollars were better just maybe not 10X better. Thanks!!

A all the way, more clear. But it was way more distorted so that means it will most likeky be the chinese version, and a bit hotter pickup. The B versiin sounded really muffled, not at all paf like, which should be telecaster on steroids.

The Lollars (green) sound like $350 of wasted money. Clean or dirty they had no character and at higher gain they became brittle and shrill.

I have been swearing by GM pickups for years now and this is exactly why.

Very cool

Have many Guitar Fetish pickups . They don't answer . Now have Madness and love them at 50% less !

Great video. Loved hearing how different they sound. I’ll take a set of those cheap ones and save some cash.

Love the PAF-classic-rock sound. I’m sure the answer’s already out but yeah green shirt definitely had nicer pickups. The other’s weren’t bad, but sounded cheaper when played alongside green-shirt’s tones. The gain was a pretty strong hint. Nicer PAF’s just churned out gritty, chunky, tight-feeling goodness while the B. pickups sounded almost a little ‘fake’ when the gain started coming up.
In other words, with the gain up, A vs B is like a motorcycle vs an electric scooter.

Steve-O doing guitar videos! Yay!

i far preferred the green shirt but both were useful and at some level intellectually I didn't like the extra drive they seem to impart... but your test sample wasn't as varied as I would want.

Blue shirt sounds like the Chinese pickups. Even through crappy laptop speakers, it's night and day. Green has clarity, sparkle and bloom. Blue doesn't.
I wouldn't buy either of these, as it goes. FWIW, you could get the green ones to sound like the blues, but you'll never get the blues to sound like the greens.
$350 isn't that expensive for a good sounding PAF-a-like, by the way.

Your a good boy.

When I saw your face so close with the big smile, expressive eyes, and smooth southern drawl, I thought Joe Satriani had lost his mind😄. The green shirt sounded professional; the blue shirt sounded like a PRS SE, nice but nothing to save from a fire.

I must have an expensive ear because I guessed the lollars were green shirt, they were slightly more articulate which I liked. i was thinking the cheap pups were green shirt at first until I read the description that they were the same DC resistance.

blue shirt was definitely more “classic PAF”

Green is better.

Green has better clarity, definition and more top end. I'm guessing they're the expensive ones. However, for distorted sounds I personally prefer the slightly more mellow tone from blue (but when playing with a band green will most likely cut though the mix a little better).
The difference isn't huge and I doubt that anyone would be thinking about it if it wasn't a direct comparison.

green shirt: more articulation, louder
blue shirt: sparkly? on one of those slow pieces, a more engaging sound. (technically a little more muffled/darker in comparison, on early tracks. but that sparkliness - i mean that there are extra nuances/frills that appear that just weren't on the other. and i like it enough i'd forgive the less articulation. now, to see which is which!!).

they are a bit similar on distortion. overall neither sounds bad.

btw nice vid! i love hearing actual sound comparisons for things like this because hype on a website is not that helpful. not unlike wine labels. they may start talking about currants, cherry, vanilla, tobacco, etc.... and all you get is a mouthful of bitter and a shitty, crumbling cork. not to mention price can be high on some bs, and low on something actually decent.

pickups get all these descriptions on websites but hearing it.... that's the sauce!

i have a few rigs i need to update and it's............... UGH. some sites have samples but not on all the offerings, and then there's the whole "how do they compare to each other??" (different brands). i don't want to pay for a namebrand label, i'm looking to pay for the quality of the product itself.

any recommendations on a tele pickup?
i got this squier tele, one of the trans white finish ones. forget the name of the model, but i think there is only one that has this finish. 60s style maybe? anyway, it sounds TERRIBLE. :( it's bright/thin/caustic. like, seriously ew. i can't even play it. i've heard other teles that don't sound like this. any brands that have good tele stuff? saw in a thread on reddit (that's how i found your vid) that people were liking the brands Lindy Fralin (single coils noted especially), Lollar Imperials, TV Jones…

just looking for a place to start. i'm relatively new to all this. and the number of options gets overwhelming, even WITH research. i don't need top end, just something serviceable. thanks!

Almost guaranteed that the cover of the cheaper pickup is brass which will mute some of the high end. Lollar probably uses a nick silver cover that is more transparent. A better comparison would be between the uncovered humbuckers from both brands.

SO which model lollars is this?

What guitar madness pickups are they?

Not funny no key!!!

So which is which dude

green classic 57 blue lollar

This isn't sound,it is distortion? Useless test?

Make sure u fast faward. Cuts out at the end

I think I remember reading in the product descriptions that Guitar Madness pickups are made in Korea.

Green shirts had more balls. That’s Man-Tone, baby!

Green shirt was more raspy i liked the blue better. Now to watch the rest and find out what was what.

Hi! What is the name of the guitar? And how can I find a Chinese pickup?

For a $265 saving, I don’t hear enough of a difference to keep me from buying the Asian copies. Lollar are just arrogantly priced. Time to knock them off their pedestal, as is well done in this video.