Forgive me for saying it, but no-one here is likely to recommend any other type of pickups than BKPs (this is the BKP forum after all...)
Err, wait... IIRC, I've actually seen posts here where some regular _did_ praise some other brand - or at least mentionned SOB ("Some Other Brand", yes) as a worthwhile alternative or advised to stick to SOB if the OP was happy with it. And FWIW, that's one of the strong points here - BKP lovers, indeed, but not necessarily die-hard fanatics. I mean, we do love our BKPs because we find they just rule, but we know how subjective such a topic can be, don't we ?-)
primarily because most of us firmly believe (from our own experience) that there is a BKP for essentially every application, and they're all top-notch at what they do.
Now this is another story
As far as I'm concerned, I don't have that much experience with pups - all I can honestly say is that
1/ both pairs of BKPs I own are incredibly better than the pups they replaced on my guitars
2/ I now know how much a difference pups can make
3/ every _similar_ guitar with SOB pups I've tried since did sound - more or less - dull, lifeless, and either wimpy, muddy or shrill. Sometimes it was so obvious I couldn't believe it, sometimes it was just "not that bad but a bit lacking", and as strange as it might seem, the ones that that felt in the second category were not necessarily the most expensives (ok, I probably expect more from a €3000 guitar than from a €300 one, so I may be a bit biased here, but well...).
(snip remaining sound - lame pun, yes - advices)
