Single coil VS Humbucker. The latter is almost always preferred, but how much does it pay to habit? Are we really familiar with today’s faithful versions of single-coil classics? Charlie Christian, in his goal of transcending the guitar from its essentially rhythmic function, did not have the privilege of choice and when Gibson, in the late 1930s, supplied the ES 130 and ES 250 with the new bar pickup, originally built for Hawaiian instruments, he adopted these two models which he then played throughout his life.
Some British manufacturers, who do not have cheap products in their catalog, have acquired original pre-war models and “tore them apart”. They measured all possible parameters, analyzed the nature of the materials, and revealed the assembly processes. Using the same AWG38 wire, they reproduced a version of the historic Charlie Christian, with a mild steel bar, plated with copper and then chromed, and magnetized to the same Gauss value. They got the closest sound to Charlie’s old records ever heard. Perhaps they are even more faithful than an original surviving today, since it has lost at least 30% of its power, after 70 years, and therefore it has also lost part of its entry “punch”. So honor to singles!