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I finally lost my battle with myself not to change pickups on my 56 NOS Strat. I’ve never been particularly happy with the sound from the bridge pickup, the B and the top E were thin sounding and far too bright. I use 10-46 strings, yes, I know I should fit hawsers to be authentic, but with a guitar that’s got fairly low vintage frets and a 7.25” fingerboard radius, I really struggle to do a gig of two one hour sets with strings any heavier than that.
So, I started looking at different pickups. I noticed that Hank is using the CS54s on his Strats now, and looking at the specs, the bridge pickup is wound a bit hotter. I was having a look on the Seymour Duncan website, and the Five-Two pickups caught my eye, which use Alnico 5 for the bottom three magnets and Alnico 2 for the top three to tame the top end, with a bridge pickup wound to 6.9k, which gives it a bit more output and midrange, with a lower resonant peak.
I took the plunge and bought one and fitted it a couple of days ago, and it’s been a revelation. The top strings now sound much fuller, less harsh, and the increased windings make it slightly more ‘twangsome’, and balance better with the middle and neck pickups.
To my ears, this sounds much better for Shads stuff than the stock pickup. I know this can be a bit of a subjective thing, and it’s not cheap at aroung £67, but if you’re using lighter strings, I reckon this pickup could be the answer.

Simon

I put a Tonerider Vintage on the bridge of my 57 reissue as I found the 57/64 bridge just a little too biting when playing live. They are made in a similar way to those where different Alnico is used on the treble strings and I found that they were wound at about the same resistance of a CS54 PU. It sounds better and I was able to put 11s on and still not sound too bright and piercing.

Put a Duncan5/2 in my tele a few years back and it works very well, does sound a bit compressed in the tele. I have a 5/2 strat pickup in the middle telecaster position....
Not shads, but heres a sound clip of the 5/2 bridge pickup.......first bit of the clip is neck and bridge, 2nd parts are 5/2 bridge...
https://soundcloud.com/rob-kay/amp-simu ... st/s-EOz9z
Rob

Excellent sound, Rob.

Interestingly enough, 6.9k is almost the same DCR as a Texas Special. Fender made these to reproduce the sound Stevie Ray Vaughn got from his Strat, which was a 'bitsa', made up of a 1962 neck, 1963 body and 1959 pickups. The pickups were particularly powerful, which sometimes happenned in the days when they were wound by hand.

I wonder if anyone's ever plugged a multimeter into 34346? If it ever happens, we may learn something important!