Pole pieces not in line - issue or not?

[SkylineUK]

I just bought an Epiphone Tommy Thayer 'Spaceman' guitar (ok, I hear you....for the record I couldn't care less about Kiss, I just like the guitar and its cosmetics  :oops:  ).

It features two Gibson 498T pickups.  As these are treble, i.e. bridge pickups, the strings don't align at all well with the pole pieces of the 498T in the neck position.  Obviously Thayer/Epiphone don't regard this as being an issue but I always thought that strings should be in line with the centre of their pole pieces.  I'm not a techy however, (as evidenced by this impulse purchase...).  Is this configuration ok, or is it a case of "if the sounds are ok then nothing else really matters"?

[GuitarIv]

Doesn't matter at all mate, from my experience it's really just cosmetics. Had the same issue with a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck in the Bridge of a Floyd guitar. It was too small. Later on I installed a Jeff Beck trembucker resulting with the string being in the right position without any change in sound.

Cheers

[SkylineUK]

That's very interesting.  I was thinking that each string had to sit somehow symmetrically in the magnetic field emanating from its corresponding pole piece.  I'd certainly be interested in hearing other view on this!  Science or mojo?!

[FELINEGUITARS]

I like Tommy Thayer - he was good in Black N Blue and he seems to work in Kiss (does what uncle Gene tells him to , which Ace never did)

If the poles fall outside the strings not a problem really as the strings will still cut the magnetic flux lines nicely and generate a good signal.

[Toe-Knee]

Doesn't matter at all mate, from my experience it's really just cosmetics. Had the same issue with a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck in the Bridge of a Floyd guitar. It was too small. Later on I installed a Jeff Beck trembucker resulting with the string being in the right position without any change in sound.

Cheers

Interesting. I noticed quite a big difference between the JB and TB version. But it wasn't down to the pole spacing the pickup itself was hotter. I've found this with all of SD's trembucker variants.

[MDV]

GuitarIv is right. Its immaterial, sonically. *if* the strings were between poles you may hear a difference. Bottom line, look under rasta yoda.

[Lucifuge]

In my experience it does not matter. I have an electric 12-string with Apaches, and on the B and high E string pairs, one string goes over the centre of the magnet while the other is off by the edge. There is no noticeable (by me) difference in tone between the two strings of each pair if I pluck them individually.