New Wilkinson Active Pickups

[Chienmortbb]

On the JHS site, there are a number of new Wilkinson bass pups many tarted as Active. However there is no info on them.

Are they true actives like EMG, just low impedance or is Active a marketing term?

Edited January 1, 2016 by Chienmortbb

[BigRedX]

IMO the only true active pickup system is the Lightwave one. Everything else are standard passive coils and magnets with a pre-amp circuit buried in the epoxy covering.

[Chienmortbb]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1451734628' post='2942864']
IMO the only true active pickup system is the Lightwave one. Everything else are standard passive coils and magnets with a pre-amp circuit buried in the epoxy covering.
[/quote]We could get into semantics here as the Lightwave pickups use infra red light and have to have decoders and preamps.

I should have been clearer in my post. I was asking whether the new Wilkinson Magnetic pickups are low impedance, have an integrated pre amp or are just "active" to the marketing department?

If the above has confused you, I will try to explain:

Magnetic pickups for passive guitars are relatively high output but also High Impedance. This makes them great receiving aerials/antennae.

This means the amp you are using also has you have high impedance to avoid loading and higher loading will be noticeable at higher frequencies as a coil's impedance rises with frequency. In addition a typical amp input stage gets noisier as impedance rises.

So if you use a lower output, lower impedance pickup you get low noise and can make up the low signal level by the use of low noise preamps.

[ahpook]

I'd assume that they were active in the same way that, for instance, EMGs are i.e. they contain active components like a amplifier.

The site's certainly short on info, might be worth dropping them a line.

[BigRedX]

If it says active in the description, then they will have a built-in pre-amp and require a battery to function. If you are wondering whether the coil and magnet part has been specifically designed to take advantage of the close physical location of the pre-amp and whether the two parts have been matched for optimum performance, only the manufacturer can tell you. Or you could buy one and take it apart. After all they're not particularly expensive.