I have a couple of DRY-Z that came with plastic shielded leads and changed them over to the braided wire yesterday and took a few pictures along the way. According to the seller the pickups were from an ESP strat, hence the plastic shielding to avoid problems with accidental grounding.
Up to now I had the Zs in my Tokai LS-150 and they completely lived up to their reputation for clarity and responsiveness. So why take them out? I have a nice set of Seth Lovers that I wanted to used in the LS-150 and I want to use these Zs in my Tokai LC-100 or Greco EC68-80. To deal with the lack of gold hardware I also traded the polepieces and covers with those from a set of PU-2s in gold I got from Yahoo Japan recently.
After measuring the resistance I realized that the one that had been in the bridge (with a shorter lead) has lower resistance at about 7.7k compared to the neck at 8.3k. The bridge needs a bit more volume so I switched them around.
From the numbers on the baseplates these pickups were made about 5 months apart. 210509 should be May 9, 1981 and 201106 should be November 6, 1980 if I am not getting things confused. The "2" is a production line number as far as I have read and doesn't indicate the model. These were not made They could have been purchased as after-market parts which may explain the different dates.
Here are some pictures to show the innards of these pickups.
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| With polepieces and bobbin screws removed |
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| Outer tape layer removed. |
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| Double black bobbins. |
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210508 with bobbin removed. Maple and mahogany spacers?
Note light wax potting and polished roughcast magnet. |
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| Back of the magnet showing some rough edges. |
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| Wax potting and very rough magnet surface. I didn't take this out to see if the back was the same. |
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| Back of the bobbin of 201106 |
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| Ready for installation in the Greco EC68-80. |
I now own this set of Maxon Dry Z Pickups, is there anything else that you could tell me about this set. I am putting them in a 1982 Greco EGC58-100 Super Real (Black with the ebony fretboard). I am keeping the Grove 1982 Pickups, just upgrading to the Dry Z's with 500k pots.
ReplyDeleteIt should be a nice combination in the Greco custom. If I recall correctly the GROOVE pickups are a bit more rounded in the top end. I thought that the pots in that guitar should be stock 500k. In any case it is a great guitar and the DRY-Z set should work well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for replying to my post. You stated that "These were not made They could have been purchased as after-market parts which may explain the different dates." What makes you think that these were not made, but put together with after-market parts, and are these true Maxon Dry Z Pickups? I was told my the person that I purchase the pickups from that the difference in the serial numbers just means that one was made in 1980 and the other was made in 1981. I am certain that I have this set of Dry Z Pickups because every rust spot on the back of both pickups match up exactly with the pictures that are posted here.
ReplyDeleteI just want to make sure that I am installing "True" Maxon Dry Z Pickups.
I am looking forward to your reply.
Thanks Again, Jack
I see I should have edited better as I left that sentence incomplete. I meant they were not made as a paired set for a guitar but could have been bought as after-market pickups. Genuine Zs, not to worry.
ReplyDeleteThat is what I figured, but I wanted to make sure. Since the covers are not the original ones and were pretty worn, I sent them in to be 24k gold plated. The hardware on my Greco is in really nice condition so newly plated covers will really look good.
ReplyDeleteThanks Again, Jack
I just thought I'd let you know, I have the Dry Z"s with the 500k pots in now and they sound great. Thanks again for all you feedback, Jack
DeleteIt sounds like a great combination to me, thanks for sharing. I'm happy the guitar ended up in the right hands!
ReplyDelete