NPD: Holydiver Neck - Review

[darkbluemurder]

Hi folks,

As mentioned in the thread about the neck Cold Sweat as a bridge pickup I was looking for a matching neck pickup for my PRS style swamp ash guitar. Tim recommended the Holydiver neck since it has the same wire type - 42.5 AWG polysol. I suppose it also has the same magnet but I did not ask and just went with the recommendation. It arrived yesterday. I only had a short time with it for now but here are my first impressions.

I orderd the pickup with a burnt chrome cover which is my favorite because (i) it is unique to BKP and (ii) every cover has its own identity. This one is a specifically beautiful example with a strong pink/reddish hue in the middle - the Cold Sweat neck in the bridge has more of a blue-greenish hue to it. I try to get a picture of the guitar - in any way it looks really beautiful. DC resistance was 7k4 which is lower than indicated on the website but I generally find my measurements reading rather low compared to published data (e.g. I measured my Abraxas neck to be 7k and the Crawler to be 7k6).

The pickup that got replaced was a WCR Goodwood neck. While I liked that it did not have too much bass it definitely lacked clarity. I also had a Crawler set and an Abraxas set in this guitar but took them out again because I found both bridge pickups to be too powerful for this guitar so that the overall tone was overcompressed. Of the neck pickups I clearly preferred the Abraxas over the Crawler in this guitar for its brighter tone.

My first impression on the Holydiver neck is that I like it even more in this guitar than the Abraxas. It has good bass, more than the Abraxas. The highs are prominent, too. I am not really sure whether they are as strong as they appear or that is just the impression because the midrange of this pickup is so clear. I can understand why some feel that this pickup appears scooped in the mids but I don't hear it as that. The mids are there but as I said they are very clear - there is no smearing anywhere. It does clean up well, too. And I agree with Tim that it matches well to the Cold Sweat neck in the bridge position.

I need to spend a bit more time with it to fully evaluate what it does to different playing techniques but so far so good. More to come ...

Cheers Stephan

[Twinfan]

Great write up.  Interesting info on the wire (42.5AWG) as that's the same as the Black Dog.  Given that my two favourite BKP sets have been Black Dogs and Holydivers that would tie-in given they have the same magnet and wire combo.

So Holydivers can be seen as hotter Black Dogs!

[ericsabbath]

Great write up.  Interesting info on the wire (42.5AWG) as that's the same as the Black Dog.  Given that my two favourite BKP sets have been Black Dogs and Holydivers that would tie-in given they have the same magnet and wire combo.

So Holydivers can be seen as hotter Black Dogs!

the neck cold sweat is 42.5 poly too, but 8.3k, so the neck diver is probably similar, but brighter and less middy, I suppose(?)

the bridge diver is 44 awg, by the way
but it is in fact pretty similar to the black dog, but sounded a lot more aggressive in the upper mids and bass was tighter (straight swaps from aftermath -> holy diver -> black dog. they're all similar voiced and very center mid focused)

[Twinfan]

Gotcha!

[darkbluemurder]

the neck cold sweat is 42.5 poly too, but 8.3k, so the neck diver is probably similar, but brighter and less middy, I suppose(?)

I have not tried the Cold Sweat neck in the neck spot of that particular guitar but I would tend to agree to your description. It seems it would also have been a good match to the Cold Sweat bridge in the other guitar where I have the Abraxas neck in the neck spot.

Cheers Stephan

[Telerocker]

Interesting review! Thanks.

[darkbluemurder]

As an update to my review above, the Holydiver neck is now in a guitar paired with a Cold Sweat bridge (not the neck model used as a bridge pickup), and it works well there, too. Even though the HD neck appears to be low in output looking at the specs it has no problem to keep up with the CS bridge.

Cheers Stephan