[quote name='Vibrating G String' post='967323' date='Sep 25 2010, 08:57 AM']Actually neodymiums are the strong pickup magnets. Are they super bright?[/quote]
Out of the alnico and ceramic choices you have in conventional pickups, ceramic is the stronger. The only neodymium pickups I know of are far from conventional.
[quote name='Vibrating G String' post='967323' date='Sep 25 2010, 08:57 AM']Coil winding is unrelated to the material the magnet is made of. Any difference in magnetic field strength between materials can be compensated for by simply changing the mass of the magnet.[/quote]
Pickups require an output level within a certain range, and are limited in size by a standardised form factor. Thus The output must be maintained through magnet strength or winding length. Alnico magnets were the only thing available when the size was established, and the output levels were correspondingly established at this point. So increasing the mass of the magnet using alnico would take it outside the size limit established. This limitation was removed by the advent of ceramic magnets and thus very hot pickups became practical, and there was space to work with regarding coil length.
[quote name='Vibrating G String' post='967323' date='Sep 25 2010, 08:57 AM']No 2 pickup instrument has a pickup that sounds like the un amplified instrument. This can be suggested with simple logic. The 2 pickups sounds different from each other and therefore only one at best can be a close match to the un amplified tone. Most Alembics have at least 2 pickups. Is it the neck or the bridge that sounds just like the acoustic tone?
Dismissing things like where you press your ear to the body, how the instrument is held and any tonality imparted by the amp and cabinets as having any bearing on the tone is troublesome.[/quote]
Neither sounds "just like", it sounds "very similar". I'd guess it would have been the neck pickup, I generally favour that.