VHII or Holydiver set in an ESP Eclipse

[Charlie-AKA]

I have a 2006 ESP Eclipse, it looks like a Les Paul but it's way lighter, has a contoured rear side of the body, and jumbo frets. It's all mahogany with a flamed maple top and rosewood board. Awesome guitar. It came with a Seymour Duncan JB bridge and 59 neck and sounds good. I ordered a Rebel Yell bridge and an Aftermath neck to replace the duncans but they are taking forever to get here. BKP took a month to make them and now the USPS has had them in transit for two weeks so far with no expected delivery date so far. This happened last time I ordered direct from them too. The covid has everything moving slow as molasses, I'd ordered direct from them at least half a dozen times before and it always took two weeks from the time I ordered online to the package being in my mailbox.
Next friday I have oral surgery and I'm going to laid up at home for a week or so recovering. I'd like to have some new pickups to rock out with. Since the covid stuff has slowed down BKP lately, I've been accumulating BKP pickups (ordering from companies in the US or people on Reverb/eBay) that I'm interested in, even though I don't yet have guitars picked out to put them in.
So bottom line I'm trying to decide whether I should install the VHII set or the Holydiver set in my ESP Les Paul copy. Neither look like they'll be inappropriate for the guitar, I mean I play rock and 80s metal. Should I just flip a coin?

[Charlie-AKA]

I guess one question I have is which neck humbucker of the two sets might have the most sustain?

[ericsabbath]

I'd try both 

I had the vhii set and the holy diver paired with a cold sweat, both in the same guitar (early 90's japanese Hurricane Les Paul copy)

the VHII is like a clean boosted PAF, with an uncompressed but loud woody tone, slightly recessed mids and a quite thumpy low end
the neck pickup is similar but a hair warmer and less bass heavy (I actually liked the neck model better installed in the bridge position, where it sounds a lot like a riff raff)
compared to the mule set in the same guitar, the vhII is generally louder, tighter and bassier, but still somewhat similar regarding the frequency distribution
they still retain that hollow acoustic-like sound of some PAF-based pups,


the holy diver is a completely different animal, with less bass, less top end and a ton of center mids
the diver is a lot more compressed and fatter in the mids, but it doesn't have that clean thump of the vhII
I liked it much better for leads and the pinch harmonics sounded huge
I kinda liked its clean tones better (although the vhii is cleaner)

I have no experience with the neck diver, but assuming it's supposed to be somewhat similar to the cold sweat, but less hot, I'd guess it has a brighter and middier tone than the vhII
not sure about the sustain, but both aren't really hot without some pedal help

personally, I like the holy diver better than the vhii, but really depends on what type of tone you're chasing

[Telerocker]

I like your descriptions Eric. Seems spot on to me. I would favour the Diver in the Eclipse which is imo has in general a brighter natural voice than most LP's.

[ericsabbath]

I like your descriptions Eric. Seems spot on to me. I would favour the Diver in the Eclipse which is imo has in general a brighter natural voicee than most LP's.

thanks, brother! 

I think he does want something brighter, since he ordered a rebel yell (my new favorite!), but I'm not 100% sure the vhII would deliver "brighter results" than the hd
it does have more top, but a bit less upper mids, so that might be a tie in the overall brightness (I don't really remember)
I think the VHII can get close to a rebel yell with a tube screamer (cutting lots of bass and boosting the upper mids), but a boosted holy diver gets in that ballpark too
 
if I still had a lot of BKPs laying around and one guitar, I'd be moving them around every week
experimentation with BKP's is always worth it, even when I don't get a new favorite

[Telerocker]

I would like to try a RY too, just need to find the right guitar for it. For now I stick to Mules, VHII and Crawler.

[Charlie-AKA]

So I installed the VHII set and it is as awesome as I thought it would be and plenty bright. The pleasant surprise was that the VHII bridge PU sounds good all the way up the fretboard well past the 15th fret and doesn’t get that ringing/warbly weird sound that a lot of bridge pickups get. The only other pickup I’ve used that sounded good at every fret was the Silo. If I had a guitar with just one bridge PU and no neck PU then the silo would probably be the one to use.
I guess the next step is deciding what to do with the VHII once the RY arrives. I have a Kiesel HH telecaster being built and I’m also contemplating one more guitar to replace another tele that I just sold. I’m considering one of those Fender FSR neck though telecasters, or possibly another HH style tele shape, mahogany body guitar like a Schecter, Charvel, or even Ibanez FR800.