S.U.B sterling bass pick-up upgrade suggestions?

[harrypatrickgolding]

I have a S.U.B. STERLING RAY 4 by Musicman, if I wanted to upgrade the pick-up what choices do I have? Which ones sound great? Which ones sound crap? I'm looking for the classic musicman sound...I am guessing since S.U.B is an affordable bass the pickup is also affordable and that there are better ones out there.

[stoo]

I had a SbMM Ray4 and thought it sounded pretty good as stock.... but if I would have replaced anything it'd have been the preamp rather than the pickup that I'd have been looking at first.

I've got a John East MMSR 3 band in my EBMM SUB and can recommend it, but if you don't need/want the mid control or are on a tight budget, then the Retrovibe Stinger is supposed to be a replica of the original Musicman 2 band preamp and only £39....

If you still want to replace the pickup after that, then the Nordstrand 4.2 is meant to be a very good replica of the early Musicman pickup

[Roger2611]

I picked up a used Delano off here recently, it's fantastic, I also put a John East preamp in as well, fantastic combination

[JakobT]

Swapping the preamp should probably be your first port of call. In addition to the excellent options already mentioned, Aguilar makes a preamp that should fit, and they make replacement MM pickups as well.