LeoSounds Vintage Player 1966 Classic

These are single coil (passive) pickups made closely to the original 66??s specs. Pickups have 5.7-5.9 k Ohm, inductance 2.3H, Q 1k = 2.3;

I have a ca. 1980 Strat "Fender made in Japan". The pickups are the economic type, bar magnet with non-staggered iron pole-pieces, middle is RWRP. Stock sound was unsatisfactory, so I looked for rescue. See below.

I like a spartanic setup Strat, sometimes a modded Fuzz Face clone, sometimes a Digitech RP-500 (which has some good vintage FX),
hot-rodded Fender Twin with 4x10 speakers; just with an onset of crunch - a typical 60ies setup some say even with the FX Processor.
I like to play 60/70ies music, Hendrix, Cream and the like.

Now this is not the usual swap-pickups-and-be-happy story, I need to tell the history.
Since Fender??s traditional way of wiring guitar electronics is a slap in the face of all contemporary engineering practices for sensitive electronics, I reworked the whole guitar.
I screened all cavities with copper foil, re-routed all signal and ground wires to star-earthing, used balanced lines if possible, replaced the stock 250k volume pot with a 500k pot, replaced the tone controls with rotary switches for resonance (treble cut) and bass cut capacitors, and placed a FET buffer right after the guitar. The stock 5-way switch was replaced by three toggles to accomodate the Dan Armstrong setting. This allows for far greater flexibility than before, series and parallel combinations unheard of. The difference in tone was unbelievable, although the guitar basically stayed the same.
Tone now was crisp, solid, well defined, very versatile.
The pickups now operate in a more controlled, repeatable environment where they feel "cosy" and can display their virtues.
So from a start, after re-working, tone was very satisfactory - to eliminate all doubts on that - but not necessarily vintage. (What is vintage sounding?)

Given all that, after upgrading to Vintage Player 66 pickups the change in tone seemed subtle at first glance, as expected.
I cannot, therefore, add to the countless row of those hailing the replacement pickups unconditionally. There is, nevertheless a certain
attractive and dirty "growl" to them, especially when a parallel capacity in the magnitude of a long guitar cable is employed. Mind, this would in a stock guitar probably be hard to evoke, there is too many tone-killing variables. They also exhibit a certain very nice tendency to break up "raunchy", when you crank your amp.
One some switch positions, they sound more than the originals like what is probably ment by "twang".
The VP-66 also seem a bit louder subjectively, and well balanced tonally and throughout the pickups. The ??66 have staggered magnets,
which betters the problem I had that some strings were sticking out volume-wise. Also, the bridge pickup is eminently usable per itself or even in unison with the neck (Armstrong??s Super Strat switching allows for all these combinations), but this, again, may ask for a little extra capacitance in parallel. And, yes, they are certainly reminiscent of Jimi, once you hit the fuzz face ;-).


From a viewpoint of manufacturing, the VP-66 make an impression of perfect craftsmanship, customer service is competent, friendly and prompt.

Since the whole guitar was upgraded to contemporary technical standards beforehand and tone was not bad, it is hard to determine now, if a simple pickup swap would have given the same sonic result. I doubt it. Find out yourself.
It is nevertheless to be bedoubted that anybody elses product will produce vintage tone more authentic, since they are basically
using an equivalent arrangement - at a multiple of the cost sometimes. Anything beyond that I have to assign to voodoo.
Independent of that, I do recommend to all sonically dissatisfied, to at least properly screen and re-ground the guitar before deciding upon
further invasive measures.


If this guitar got lost I would certainly go and build one like it is now again. Any more pursuit for "the" sound will have to be in playing technique ;-)

One thing I did not like was the stiff cloth-covered wire. A bit unpractical and in my eyes a futile tribute to vintage tone.