Which Passive pickup resembles the EMG 81 best???

[MrDan666]

Duncan Distortion. I actually had EMG 81's in my Charvel and i swapped them for a Duncan Distortion. The Distortion sounds extremely close, as it has the tight/controlled low end and the raging upper mids and treble of the EMG81. The only difference for me, is the Distortion has less of the processed sounding note 'attack' that the 81 had, and obviously the Distortion has a bit less gain than the 81 too.

 

[Anonymous]

I went from an 81 to a dimarzio dominion, and Im NOT looking back. Shit is tighter, clearer, and heavier sounding.

Morton used to play duncan Sh-5 pickups.

sh-5 to me gets pretty close out of all the pickups I personally have tried.

im sure there are other good examples, don't discount a good old duncan custom though.

 

[jkkkjkhk]

Forgot to put the clip up back then. First clip is the 81 vs 81x with the active tone pot (comes with the X), this seems to make the biggest difference. Second clip is the 81 vs 81x without the active tone pot, using the passive pot that comes with the normal "not X" series. The differences are very small, the X sounds nice but I actually prefer the normal 81. The punchy compressed tone was what I was going for and that's what it does perfect. This was a controlled test. Used a Jackson Rhoads Pro into an Eleven Rack, just swapped the pickups and kept everything the same.
https://soundcloud.com/jkkkjkhk/emgs-1
https://soundcloud.com/jkkkjkhk/emgs-2