The Alnico 2 HSS Set

Great sounding HSS strat set

The Alnico 2 HSS set is perfect for authentic strat sounds; great clarity and well balanced. Brilliant value.

Ruined me on other pickups

I put these in a Squier Standard Strat and it is now my favorite guitar. I had a fender player II strat, and I returned it withing the 45 days after I played these toneriders. I tried a sire s7, and ended up trading it, as I only want to play my squier with the toneriders. They have ruined me on other pickups.

Alnico II HSS set

I've been using these HSS pickups in a project guitar for a few weeks now and, as usual, I couldn't be happier with them. In my last project I used a Birmingham HSS set, which are a bit punchier and higher gain than this Alnico II set, however I love the warmth of these Alnico IIs. I'd used Tonerider Alnico II HBs in a previous project and found them really clear and warm, so, despite the fact I hadn't yet tried the Alnico II SCs, I expected the HSS set would work well for me, and it has. With the Birmingham set I used 500K pots and 510K resistors to balance the top end of the SCs and HB, to good effect. This time I decided to use 500K pots again, but to try leaving the resistors out, and was really pleased to find that, with a little playing around with pickup heights, the outputs were easy enough to balance. When I split the coils of the Alnico II HB, the SCs are still just a little brighter, as I probably expected, however the overall effect is really pleasing. As I've said in other reviews, you can't beat Tonerider for value in terms of price vs quality. But, overall, they really just make great pickups!