Golden Age Parsons Street Humbuckers

These are great. Just a heads up though, they have long legs. Not good for Strats without modding. Too bad I was dying to put it in to compliment my Golden age bridge pickup. My mistake, pickup is great. I may keep it for an import Paul if I buy one.

Golden Age pick-ups are the best. I'm a Epiphone fan and for $120.00 you can make them sound like a $2600.00 Gibson. Now whats wrong with that?

Hello Everyone: I recently acquired A parsons street humbucker and an overwound humbucker from a friend who couldn't finish a started project. I installed the pickups in a ESP Grassroots les paul, I used a stew mac wiring kit and orange drop capacitors, well let's say the tone is pure classic, the parsons street humbucker sounds like what a PAF should sound like. It sounds like a boutique pickup with out the boutique price.

With the overwound pickup in the bridge position it has that nice "BURST" tone you hear in the late 50's les pauls. I am playing them through a marshall jcm 900 and it has that classic tone. With this setup it sounds like Joe Walsh or the Led Man Jimmy Page. I really want to thank the gang at stew mac for bringing an affordable option to our guitars, especially in this economy at the moment.
Thanks again

I'd like to thank you for my last order which included an es-175 trapeze a parson st alnico 2 neck pickup and a micro bead pad selection.
> I own an es-175 copy that had been made by the takamine factory as a prototype that never went into production. I was never happy with the feel or sound of the guitar but I knew it had been very well built. I used the micro bead pads to take the over polished lacquer down and to polish out the rough edges on the neck and fretboard. I change the pickup and .......WOW!!!!!! not only has the trapeze given it a better acoustic quality and more sustain the micro bead pad polishing has given it a look that resembles 50 years of polishing and the neck feels amazing. Here's the best bit, the pickup is truly stunning. I've often heard people describe tone as sweet, this pickup for me is not only sweet it's much much more. The high tones are so smooth until you dig in and then it has this cutting vintage blues tone, layoff and you get the sweetest of jazz tones. I can hear the plectrum momentarily scrape across the flat wounds on the lower strings to produce this almost breath like quality just before the sound opens out. A truly beautiful and inspiring tone, that I would be happy to put on any guitar and I've owned some amazing guitars in my 30 years of playing which have included some of the best hand wound pickups in the world.
Archtops that have been made by the likes of Dick knight, the luthier to Pete Townsend , George Harrison and Paul McCartney.... This humble guitar has now become my pride and joy and has inspired me to reach for greater things.
It's also worth mentioning that the previous owner had put one of your ebony bridges on it as well, fantastic, I think I speak for most when I say thank you so much for providing such incredible quality at an attainable price for the not so rich.
Yours
Lance Thomas

Great sound, great value. Usually, I don't care too much for the pickups in my guitars. I take whatever my luthier recommends and that's about it. My Heritage Prospect from the Mid-90s was an exception. It's a fantastic little guitar but they shipped it with some dark sounding German pickups. It took me some years and many different pickups until I finally found the Parson Street HBs.

I chose the Alncio 2 version for both neck and bridge position and I couldn't be happier with that. To me it doesn't get any better just more expensive. The picture shows the guitar after the installation featuring the odd-colored (fitting the pickguard color) HB mounting rings from StewMac.

I have owned so many guitars in almost 50 years of playing that I can't remember all of them but once I put these Golden Age Parsons Street humbuckers in my Epiphone Les Paul Custom Black Beauty I was flat out amazed.

I have used Imperials, Fralins, Holmes, Duncan and many others in LP's before but I have to say that these Parson Street PUPS are as smooth, warm, articulate, balanced and crystal clear of tone as any of the previous ones mentioned.

I used an Alnico 2 in the neck and an Alnico 5 at the bridge. Combined they are perfect for rhythm playing and the A2 at the neck is superb for playing the blues. The A5 at the bridge is punchy and defined in Overdrive or Distortion modes and clean and punchy in the clean mode. So after the addition of these excellent Parson Street pickups and the master craftsmanship that Mike Forrester of Forrester Kustoms did in making this Epi LP in to a player as good as any "Real Deal" Gibson I have ever owned. This guitar has become my front line instrument for performances and studio work alike.

I have an Epi Les Paul. I like the neck and the weight better than the current Gibson's I can reach. The electronics were awful. Parson Streets, new wiring, caps, pots, switch and jack, a complete setup, and this axe is in a different category of good. These Parson Streets are simply the best PAFs out there.

I own a 1980 Gibson Es 335 Pro that originally came with Dirty Fingers pickups. I have replaced the pickups numerous times with ones that have had higher output and have always been disappointed with how muddy the instrument has sounded. When I replaced my ceramics with a set of the Parson Street Humbuckers, I was amazed at the clarity of tone and balanced output that I believed the guitar always had, but had not yet found! It's wonderful to be inspired each time I plug in! Next up is a Les Paul upgrade!

Near and dear to my heart about 30 years I had a pair of cream white PAF's out of a 1959 Gibson dot neck 339 . I installed them in a bridge modified 52 Les Paul.The tone was amazing. The Parsons Street pickups with the Alico 2's nailed that sound perfectly! I can't tell you how happy I am with these pickups.
I searched for this sound for many years since I sold that guitar. They have a perfect balance of highs, mids, and lows with just the right amount of output. No boosted frequencies (highs, mid,lows)that some popular replacement pickups have.The Parsons have that creamy , warm,brown tone with wonderful clear highs on the top end. That's where the sweetness lives on the top end.
If you're not happy with your PRS pickups or even your Gibson pickups then I highly recommend these Parson street pickups.
Tech support was great. Thanks for your help "Larry".
JP from Littleton, CO

Put one of these Alnico 5 single-conductor babies in the neck of my Epi Dot: night and day difference. Bridge pup is already on it's way. If you own an Epi and you probably do if you're reading this - you owe it to yourself to make this investment. Hey you bought the thing because it looks like a Gibson, why not make it sound like a Gibson too (and the stock Epi pups sure don't!) Even with my feeble soldering skills installation was simple enough. Don't be put off by the braid - just make sure you tin it first before attaching to the volume pot. One thing that surprised me was that the wire exited the case in the top left corner as opposed to the bottom right which would make more sense for a neck pickup, however in re-reading the description it does state "Old PAFs weren't made in separate neck and bridge-position models"