Are you comparing this again to the Duncan 59? Which IMO sounds more like the patent number (RR kind of sound)
All (good) PAF copies I have heard have a sweet mid push to them
57 classic, 490r, duncan 59, even the jazz model, t-tops, seth lover, burstbuckers, dimarzio PAF classic, air classic
they all have a very weak midrange, imo
despite of sounding good or not
being as low output as PAF doesn't make a humbucker necessarily a PAF
if it is mid pushed, than it differs from the standard PAF sound
a pickup model that sounds close to some of our idols is not necessarily close to the pickups they used
people use Gibsons (VERY middy guitars with middy woods and construction) through Marshalls and v30's/greenbacks/g12h's and then attribute those mids to the pickups
most BKP models are named after an specific sound, but they obviously won't capture a whole equipment and tweaking, but they are usually voiced after that
the fact that Jimmy Page or Angus tones sound middy, doesn't make their pickups middy
maybe they even used the same pickups, but the black dog and riff raff are totally different models
so if a Painkiller is melting hot and middy, it doesn't mean that whatever pickups Judas Priest guys used to record were middy and hot
I think a lot of people get offended with the word "scooped" and attribute that to 80's thrash metal tones with mids on 0 and g12t75 speakers, but a pickup alone is a pickup and that's all
the final tone is a whole different matter
those scooped sounding bands in fact use heavily middy voiced pickups, while the middy sounding bands usually have very scooped pickups :lol:
