Monty's PAFs versus Gibson 60th anniversary custombucker pickups

A video comparing 2 sets of pickups. The Monty's are in a 2017 Gibson custom shop 1958 re-issue as featured in the earlier Monty's video demo I did and the other guitar is a stock Gibson custom shop 60th anniversary 1959 heavy aged by Tom Murphy.

The Monty's PAFs are well regarded as being some of the most authentic sounding PAF replica pickups and are supplied unpotted. I bought them stock from their shop and as supplied the specs are:
Neck- Alnico V, 7.2k
Bridge- Alnico II, 7.7k

The Gibson custombuckers are new for the 60th anniversary models and are also unpotted but both pickups are Alnico III. To be scientifically accurate, these should be named Alni III as they don't contain Cobalt!
Alnico stands for a magnetic metal blend of Aluminium, Nickel, Cobalt and Iron.

Now, there are all sorts of variables in play here; the elephant in the room being the 2 different guitars. Let's leave that particular one aside here!

The others are the magnetic field strength of the pickup as caused by the magnet and any shielding effects of the materials used to make the pickup, the type of wire and resistive, inductive and capacitive properties of the coil and the loading of the pickup into the volume and tone controls and amplifier.
Also the height of the pickup in relation to the string moving in and out of the magnetic field is crucial.
It's just too complex really to contemplate and if I had access to a vector network analyser which operated in the region of sub 50kHz, I would have a go at characterising these pickups. I don't however :-)

I would subjectively offer the following:
The 60th anniversary Les Paul is particularly resonant and acoustically has some high end 'slap' that the '58 doesn't.
The Monty's sound balanced and have a warm midrange and a nice pokey high end nasal accent and are slightly hotter than the custombuckers.
The Gibson pickups are less present in the lower high end but have a more open snappy high end and are slightly less output but sound sweeter to my ears.
Both sets are quite microphonic and you can hear squeaks and squeals as you attack the strings with pick or fingers. I would say the Gibson pickups are more microphonic.

To be honest, for this comparison I can't pick one set over the other. I would buy either without hesitation. I have never played a real vintage Les Paul so any opinions regarding authenticity are null and void but if the characteristics of a PAF style pickup are to be taken as read then I would say that both sets have the sound that I'm looking for which is a warm lower output pickup with a honky high end and a nasal twang.

Equipment used:
Carr Skylark clean and attenuated using inbuilt attenuator. The amp was almost at maximum for the latter but uses a dummy speaker to cut down the dB. Reverb was from the amp.
Rode NT1-A and SM57 slightly off cone and 6" away.
Presonus audio interface and Studio One.
Curly cable.

Order of play:
00:00 to 01:00 microphonic test
01:06 Phrase 1 Monty's (neck)
01:46 Phrase 1 Gibson 60th (neck)
02:22 Phrase 1 Monty's (both)
03:10 Phrase 1 Gibson 60th (both)
03:55 Phrase 1 Monty's (bridge)
04:50 Phrase 1 Gibson 60th (bridge)
05:30 Phrase 2 Monty's (neck)
06:32 Phrase 2 Gibson 60th (neck)
07:22 Phrase 2 Monty's (both)
08:29 Phrase 2 Gibson 60th (both)
09:13 Phrase 2 Monty's (bridge)
10:47 Phrase 2 Gibson 60th (bridge)
12:02 Amp cranked Monty's (neck)
12:41 Amp cranked Gibson 60th (neck)
13:24 Amp cranked Monty's (both)
14:03 Amp cranked Gibson 60th (both)
14:43 Amp cranked Monty's (bridge)
15:24 Amp cranked Gibson 60th (bridge)

Pure nerdishness hahaha but if you get this and I can't be alone, then hope you like it!

Please feel free to visit my website for more guitar stuff!

https://www.gringopig.com/