Are Alnico Magnets Better Than Ceramic For Pickups

Ceramic is typically much higher gain and output.

Are alnico magnets better than ceramic for pickups. Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most. There are fantastic pickups on the market which utilize ceramic magnets such as the dimarzio titan and the seymour duncan black winter. You will get a louder smoother tone and better heavy distortion. Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico.

The weaker magnetic field created by alnico magnets is said to give them a warmer smoother quality than a ceramic magnet but at the cost of reduced gain. However this is simply a misconception. They provide a different flavor from alnico. What this means is that as the voice coil starts moving in response to the input signal it generates a magnetic field of its own that tries to demagnetize the magnet.

4 is a little weaker and has a little less gain and more of an old school tone and overdrive. The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides. These magnets are softer than ceramic magnets and provide a weaker magnetic field.

A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. We use alnico 3 magnets in our real 54 s to give them a bright glassy tone. You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction. Alnico is nice and warm and great for blues.

Curiously alnico 3 is weaker than alnico 2 in a bar magnet form but stronger than alnico 2 in a rod magnet form. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool. Alnico aluminum nickel cobalt is an alloy magnet and all alloy magnets are easier to demagnetize than comparable ceramic strontium ferrite magnets. Technically more efficient ceramic magnets took over in a wide variety of commercial applications starting in the 1960s but ceramic magnet guitar pickups were found to have a generally harsher more brittle sound with sharper peaks than their alnico predecessors.

So we often hear. Alnico ii is a lower output magnet that is smooth and usually has just a bit of warmth. You see ceramic is easier to come by than alnico making it a cheaper magnet to make. Alnico v has more scooped mids and tighter in the low end.

Provides some bite and sparkle. As a guitar pickup magnet it s lows are soft and bouncy mids are generally warm and full and highs are glassy. Alnico viii is generally between ceramic and alnico v with quite a bit of magnetic pull punchy with upper mids but a little more warmth than ceramic. Alnico is very different from one type to another.