Thanks everyone for suggestions on pickups and new axes. Well, I've shelved the idea of getting a new axe since I spent the weekend doing some serious work on my Fenix strat-floyd HSS. I levelled and dressed the frets and gave it a thorough setup. I now have it playing extremely well and can properly diagnose what is lacking in the current pickups. The situation remains the same: they are lifeless, particularly the bridge humbucker which is a bit of a eunuch. The singles are quite woody-sounding and not too bad, but overall this axe needs more bottom and mids and more punch and attitude. So, as you can see, I'm back to the idea of replacing the pickups.
All of the suggested HSS sets sound like possible options but the key I think is selecting a set that will complement the natural sound of the axe (what? - you say you want cr@p pickups? lol). Seriously though, I want to compensate for rather than accentuate the fairly bright tone of the guitar (or is it the stock PUs?), without going too far and making things too dark. It definitely needs more bottom though. I like a fairly present sound but I want attitude not 'single-coilness'. I am also more of a rhythm player than lead, so the whichever bucker I get should be for adding general chunk. I want a pretty hot output with typical humbucker meat and potatoes, but with the versatility to cover some different genres. I'm not looking for 80s big-hair or modern high-gain, but I also don't want a medium output vintage strat sound either as this probably isn't quite pokey enough for what I want. My amp is a Frenzel all-tube 'deluxe/vintage marshall hybrid', p-to-p tube rectifier, push-pull head into a 2x12 - its no dual recto high gainer - it's a tone monster. I'm not sure if all this clarifies my needs any further than my original post but I'd appreciate people's input on an HSS set, particularly on humbucker choice as I'm having a really hard time selecting this from the descriptions. Sorry for the long post.
Cheers,
Andy.
