Fender Pure Vintage '65 Stratocaster Pickups - Authentic Single Coil Guitar Pickups for Blues, Rock & Vintage Tone | Perfect for Strat Upgrades & DIY Guitar Projects

I had one of the old Standard (MIM) series Strats from 2014 and the stock pickups were just okay, very generic sounding. Then I replaced them with Texas Specials. Those were way too hot and muddy and not how a Strat should sound. As my tastes refined and I got an American Professional Strat I had a better idea of what modern and vintage sounds were like.So I dusted off my old Standard Strat and popped in these ‘65 pickups and I’m blown away. This is how a Strat should sound. It’s got that blues tone Strats are known for and distortion/light breakup sounds heavenly. Very articulate sounding. They have a clear attack and those classic Strat tones you hear in demos but can never get at home. And yes, they do the Hendrix tones.There’s just the tiniest bit more high end than miss and bass but just barely. Overall the tone description on the box is accurate. I would say, however, that the output is not low. These are not hot pickups but they’re also not super quiet and tame. You can get great clean tones, you can drive your amp to breakup nicely, and they work well with everything from tube screamers to distortions to fuzz.These really are perfect for anyone who wants classic tone while still being able to play and get modern tones.One thing to note is that these are period accurate to the 60s which means that the middle pickup is not reverse wound/reverse polarity so there’s no hum cancelling in the 2 and 4 positions. That said, I actually get no noise at all with these pickups while my stock pickups and Texas Specials (which are both RWRP) both picked up lots of interference. Just shield the pick guard and the inside of your guitar and you’ll be set if you’re worried about nose. Also, all three pickups are the same so you can put any pickup in any position but I just installed them top to bottom just as they came in the box.These are the best pickups I’ve ever played on a Strat and rival the V-Mod pickups in my American Pro Strat although they’re very different and I wouldn’t say that would be an apt comparison. The only other set I’d be curious to try is the vintage 59’s but the specs are so similar that I’m sure anyone would be happy with either one.Installation is easy. Just wire it up the same way any modern Strat is wired. You could even just remove one pickup at a time and swap in the new one to keep track of all the connections.