Seymour In A Blackout

US Seymour Duncan launches new AHB-1 Blackouts Active Humbuckers 26/07/07

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After the success of their active Dave Mustaine LiveWires humbucker last year, Seymour Duncan has followed up with the launch of Blackouts, a new range of 9-volt active pickups for electric guitar.
Before Duncan started designing Blackouts, they did a little market research. They found that while lots of guitarists love active pickups, many wanted a tone that was less compressed, with a more extended frequency response. In their efforts to solve those issues they discovered that some of the most popular active pickups have a critical design flaw in their circuit architecture - They use unbalanced inputs in a differential preamp. The problem is, an unbalanced differential preamp is not very effective at cancelling hum.
Duncanâ€™s engineers figured out how to capture the tone that players want in an active design while using balanced inputs. The result is that not only are the new Seymour Duncan Blackouts active humbuckers up to 14dB quieter than the competitionsâ€™, but they also have more lows, more highs, and more output. Simply put, say Seymour Duncan, the Blackouts have more tone than other active pickups. Players will notice the benefits of the reduced hum when they record, especially if theyâ€™re around computer monitors or fluorescent lighting. As for the benefits of having more tone, well Seymour Duncan say that those will be apparent everywhere.
Some of the many A-list guitar artists who have switched to Blackouts include Mick Thompson of Slipknot, Dino Cazares of Divine Heresy, Corey Beaulieu of Trivium, Silenoz of Dimmu Borgir, Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour, and Rob Trevino of Helstar.
Blackouts are available in individual neck and bridge models, or as a two-pickup set. All versions come with all necessary mounting hardware, including pots, jack, and a battery clip.
Specifications:

Neck model