TV Jones PowerTron

Passive humbucking. Don't know the impedance or DC resistance, neither of which mean squat at the end of the day.

I bought this PUP for a project guitar; a hard-tail Strat, and mounted it in the bridge position. I wanted something beefier the usual Strat single coil sound at the bridge - somthing closer to a Telecaster sound. I'd considered (and had once) a humbucker in the bridge, but felt that would be too "thick".

I was somewhat disappointed. The output level wasn't quite as much I had hoped for (I know..."volume control"...), but the sound just didn't knock me out. I did wire it for split coil operation which gave me a nice "stratty" sound when needed. Overall, the tone was just kind of 'plain vanilla' in the normal series coil position. I play everything from classic rock to blues to country. I was told by a builder that TV Jones pups are best suited for hollow bodied guitars. I think he may be right...

Am going to be putting this PUP up on E-bay very soon. The project guitar was a bust, both financially and performance-wise. Been playing 50 years and own a dozen guitars; Strats, Tele's, a couple acoustics and a Rick 12 string. I think TV Jones makes a good product. Their customer support an service are excellent and the quality and craftsmanship of the product are first-rate. The Powetron just wasn't what I had hoped it would be for my application.

These are Passive Humbucking pickups

I replaced the stock pickups by putting a Supertron in the neck position of a Gretsch 6120 and a Powerton on the bridge position. I want a better tone and more mids. This combination made huge difference in this guitar's sound. Evryone who has played it has commented on the great tone that this instument now has. I have done several side by sides with other 6120's with the stock pickups and they pale by comparision.

The output level was slightly higher and the tonal quality can best be desribed as all around richer and fuller (better mids too.) Great Gretsch sound ... on light steroids.
I play Chet Atkins finger Style and these are fantastic for this style.
I have had a couple of full time professional guitarist play this guitar and they were impressed and noticed the difference that these pick ups made.
I play through a Fender 65 Deluxe and a Peavy Classic 50.

I lost or destroyed I would get another set with out reservation. I have had 4 of my guitars refitted with TV Jones pickups and they all have had an improvement in sound. I have 2 more that I will be modifying with TV Jones pick ups this summer.
The pick ups are very well balanced, not muddy and are just the right output level to let you hear the instrument's tone. This combinations is a real "Tone Monster".
I have a Country Gentleman 6122-1959, Gretsch Chet Atkins Round Up 6121-1955, Gretsch 6120, Gretsch Country Club, Gretsch White Falcon, Gretsch CE100, Taylor T5 and an Ovation LX 6778.
I have been playing for over 35 years and have owned dozens of guitars and gone through several pickup changes. TV Jones are among the best in the world in my opinion and certainly the most affordable for a hand wound pickup.
TV Jones is also a pleasure to deal with and even custom built a set for my wife's Gretsch (gold housing with chrome pole pieces). Now when a guitar is bought in the house she asks if they are TV Jones and if not she say to get a set for it.

Humbucker, bridge, about 8 kohms by my reading.

Replaces a Seymour Duncan P-90 in a Godin LG-P90, all mahogany body and neck, at the bridge, neck pickup eliminated entirely, that slot now covered with a pickguard. (Hey, I love Les Paul Jr's, what can I say?)

Not only entirely balanced in sound, but really fairly high output, surprisingly so considering what you might consider a medium-weight ohm reading on a multimeter. Clearly, you can't go exclusively by multimeter readings to determine sound. Anyway, if you're looking for crunch, definition, and growl, you've definitely come to the right place. People have said that it approximates the PAF sound but it sounds much more ballsy to me than that. Not that there's anything lacking with the PAF sound, but this pickup beats it by a long shot. I'm not sure that I really hear what is called 'sparkle' but this is probably dependent on type of wood of the guitar, which is notoriously warm, as well as my amp settings. But the string-to-string definition and overtones are really wonderful. Very quiet pickup, as well.

Pretty much one of the very best pickups I've listened to in some time. In the least, competes very nicely with the Bare Knuckles Emerald, another wonderful pickup. I've been playing for about 30 years and regularly rebuild guitars. Having tried the usual array of pickups, and it's been pretty vast, I would rate this TV Jones and the Bare Knuckles Emerald in the very top tier. Seymour Duncan Custom 5 is also very, very nice actually, but the Powertron is much better and nudges out the Emerald, as well.

The only complaint I do have is that the original pickup sent to me had one of the English mounting tabs inadvertently folded 90 degrees toward the bottom of the pickup, i.e. a mistake which prevented me from initially mounting it. TV Jones were very apologetic and corrected the pickup when it was sent back. In less than a week, presto, a properly constructed pickup. So, their service is superb but I am a bit puzzled about why the original oversight, given how select and costly their pickups are. Hmmm . . . .

Passive, wax-saturated, humbuckers

Description (although edited) per www.tvjones.com:

At the heart of the Power'Tron bridge model are 2 extra-tall bobbins, with more winds of standard-gauge wire to reproduce single treble notes with full, midrange fatness; bass notes twang out deep & clear.

The Power'Tron neck model uses standard bobbins (to retain a 5/8" cover height), overwound with standard-gauge wire. The Power'Tron neck model uses standard .380" pole-to-pole spacing, & the Power'Tron bridge features a pole-to-pole spacing of .406" for optimum string separation & output.

All Power'Tron models are wax saturated to reduce microphonic feedback.

If you think that you know what a humbucker sounds like, think again. If you want a palette of sounds, you *must* check out TV Jones. I had no idea that a humbucker could sound like this.

I have no proof, but I highly suspect that this is what Brian Setzer uses (if someone knows either way, please tell me).

I installed a pair of Power'Trons in my Gretsch DoubleJet (double-cutaway solidbody with Bigsby) to replace the stock Rickenbacker-style pickups because the other pickups just didn't cut through the band, and the bass was ot just flabby, at best.

The output level on the Power'Trons is similar to a Fralin P90 or a hot-wound Tele bridge pickup. Just shy of a PAF (Gibson Humbucker).

I play through a '51 Fender Deluxe, a Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb reissue, and a brand new Fender Blues Junior (all are stock).

I tried TV Jones' Magna'Trons and TV Classics but, for my taste, the Power'Tron is the perfect combination of Gretsch (FilterTron) high-end sparkle, low-end twang, and midrange guts.

I play rock in the vein of rockabilly, blues, jazz, & country. I am no shredder, but I could see Power'Trons working for that.

I would definitely replace these if I lost them because there is just no other way to get that sound. I've been playing since 1969.

I have solid-, hollow-, & semi-solid-body guitars with Duncan PAFs, Fralin P90s, DeArmond 2k, & stock vintage & US Standard Fender pickups. None come close to these pickups in sonic texture.

Call or email TV Jones and tell them in what kind of guitar you plan to install the pickups and the styles that you play. They are the nicest people to work with (you'll want to invite them for Thanksgiving), and I learned a ton just speaking to them.

High output Filtertron style pickup. I believe this is achieved by extra windings because TV Jones claims to use a deeper bobbin or something. I ordered mine in 4 wire splittable form for a Filtertron solid body guitar. The pickups coils are wored in series. I don't have the impedence numbers but suffice it to say these considered about the same as a PAF on the hotness scale. They don't sound that much like PAFs though.

This went into a solid mahogany Asian built Les Paul Special copy.
For a picture check out http://members.aol.com/guitarcapo/junior.jpg
I used coil tap push pull pots on both volume pots. At first I had the pots switch them from parallel to series. The sound was too similar so I ended up wiring them as standard coil splits.

People who buy this pickup will need to tweak the height and polepieces a lot to get a good sound. The way the pickup is designed, very slight changes to the polepieces make a huge sound difference.
If you raise the polepieces on just one coil and leave the other down, a sort of phase canceling thing starts happening instead of brightness shows up, probably because of the long bobbins. So I recommend raising both polepieces together, and to do that only to balance string to string volume disparities. If you get too close to the strings, the pickups sound "clanky" A sort of metalic clank sound that isn't pleasant. You get more harmonic complexity if you get these pickups a bit away from the strings. Tapping then creates a clean sterile sound that's a bit "quacky" The output pushes an amp well. On the bridge you get a nice twangy crunch. The neck pickup never gets muddy.

Not bad, but forget about vintage Filtertron tone with this one. It probably works better in a hollow body guitar than a solid body.
I had to fight the clanky sound a bit by working with the polepieces before I got a good sound out of it. I originally bought it because I wanted to try coil tapping a Filtertron and figured a hotter one would do this better. I can't say I like this better than Hi Sensitivity Gretsch Filtertrons or the Megatrons in my Electromatic gretsch Corvette.
After all the pickup adjusting they sound good and different than a Filtertron, but not better, just different.

Pickup features: Hi output FilterTron with PAF sound
Impedence or other specs: I think it was about 7.5K...

Model of guitar or bass: 96 Gretsch Pearl Jet (a Sparkle Jet with a mother of pearl top)
Position: bridge
Pickup being replaced: stock bridge position
Other pickups on guitar: stock neck position
Artists using this pickup: I hear ZZ Top ordered a pile of these.
You musical style(s): for this guitar - rock
Reason for pickup change: Here we had the most gorgeous guitar ever created when placed under multi-colored stage lighting, exuding a vibe of "rock. very, very serious rock." And well, it sounded just like the Gretsch Cowboy since it's the same guitar with a different decor. Twang-twang-twang...
So since this guitar has a solid mahogany body (no tone chambers) and a set maple neck, I figured it could be made into a rocker easy enough. After installing a non-floating Tune-O-Matic bridge (but it still looks like it floats) and the TV Jones, it now rocks as serious as it looks.

Perceived output level: Hot for a FilterTron, which means about the same or a touch less than a PAF
Tone: Very PAF with a hint of FilterTron lurking in the tone. Nice balance, very musical, has a touch of the FilterTron glass on top
Sonic evaluation: TV steered me to this pup 3-4 years ago when I explained what I wanted to do and they described the tone it would give. Accurate on all accounts. It's a great sounding pup on it's own merits with similar playability as a good PAF - and there is that hint of FilterTron - all and all a great sound with an element of uniqueness.
It's smooth overall with a bite if you dig on the strings and it can do clean, crunch, distortion like your basic PAF. But on the clean and crunch when you go for the Bigsby, that touch of FilterTron tone in it really pays off, and "that great Gretsch tone" is still there to be had, even though it's on steroids.
A cool thing about it is that while maintaining the original Gretsch asthetics, the pole spacing exactly matches the string spacing, which means it's a touch wider than the neck pup. A big deal that no doubt helps the tone.

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: This one's for rock and it works fine in vintage amps and in modern Marshalls

Comments: Been playing 35 years (ouch - at least I started really young!) I'd replace it if I still needed this look/sound for gigging. I have a pile of great guitars and amps, some vintage stuff, some tweaked modern stuff (as in this case).
TV is the only real source for 3rd party FilterTrons - fortunately they're quite good and offer a nice variety - and they'd be at the top of the heap if there were a bunch of folks making them.
Performs as advertised and I'm a very picky, satisfied customer.