I'm very glad to hear you're getting on well with the Holy Divers!
It's interesting how certain neck pickups get somewhat fetishised as a result of some people praising them publicly, resulting in others getting under-represented or overshadowed. I've certainly been part of this in the past (I even had a guitar with a Holy Diver/Emerald combination too!), but these days I'm most likely to choose and recommend the calibrated sets. Really, all of the neck pickups in the range sound amazing in their own way and have been carefully designed to complement their bridge models in vibe and output (and also to make sure they have a flattering sound when used simultaneously in a middle position), so unless there's a need for an unusual range of tones to be covered they are almost always considering as the primary option.
A lot of it comes down to how difficult it is to describe what we want in words, I think. Thick, tight, warm, soft, bright, shrill, aggressive, cutting, loose, etc, mean different things to different people, and then there are lots of variables to do with amps and effects and recording technique as well. It's not surprising that certain pickups or combinations would become fetishized based on various posts on forums, or particularly well-recorded examples and that kind of thing.
So anyhow I was lucky enough to get a couple of hours home alone yesterday, and I cranked up the Mesa as well as ran some pedals through some other amps. The ultimate test for me is how they play with a band, but we're on a bit of a hiatus with COVID. Still, I REALLY like these pickups so far. The neck is thicker than I was lead to believe and handles gain well; it doesn't sound all that bright to me, frankly, though perhaps it is compared to other BKP neck pickups (certainly brighter than the Emerald). It just seems very, very well balanced from top to bottom. The bridge also handled gain very well, and notes sound pretty "weighty" with gain. Again, the EQ sounds very balanced from top to bottom to me, at least in this guitar. There are more highs than I thought there would be, without the level of aggression of the Nailbomb. The Nailbomb cut very well in a band and I'm not sure how these will, but I don't really foresee a problem.
I actually don't get the Holydiver to JB comparison that much, honestly. I don't have much experience with JBs (because I don't like them), but the Holydivers definitely have more going on in the low end without sounding loose to me. They just seem to have an overall more smooth spread of the EQ, whereas most JBs have kind of a mid or upper-mid hump that I feel sounds "blunt," for lack of a better word. Like I'm being bludgeoned with only that particular frequency range. The Holydiver is definitely a bit smooth/roller off in the highs compared to some bridge pickups, but not that much. I really don't feel like I'm missing any particular frequency range and also that I'm not overly focused on a particular frequency range, either.
I'm mostly writing all of this to potentially help someone in the future, as I found a lot of these threads using Google.
