Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Discussion of newer designs, copies and reissue offset-waist instruments.
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Mechanical Birds
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Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Post by Mechanical Birds » Tue Aug 25, 2020 11:45 am

Either any of us or have you seen that anywhere? The literature leaves a lot to be desired with the “Fender redesigned them to sound more like the originals” being about the extent of the info they’ve shared. I assume they’re the same as the other typical PAF Humbuckers they’ve used forever, but with them redoing the CuNiFe ones, who knows? Maybe the Vintera ones are closer to what you’d see in a Novak or Lollards variant?

Really curious to see how, if at all, they’re any different. It’s cool they’re making real ones again but I still can’t afford them. Finding a deal on a Vintera 70s Tele Deluxe would be a lot easier for me.

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Re: Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Post by vistavision » Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:27 pm

Mechanical Birds wrote:
Tue Aug 25, 2020 11:45 am
Either any of us or have you seen that anywhere? The literature leaves a lot to be desired with the “Fender redesigned them to sound more like the originals” being about the extent of the info they’ve shared. I assume they’re the same as the other typical PAF Humbuckers they’ve used forever, but with them redoing the CuNiFe ones, who knows? Maybe the Vintera ones are closer to what you’d see in a Novak or Lollards variant?

Really curious to see how, if at all, they’re any different. It’s cool they’re making real ones again but I still can’t afford them. Finding a deal on a Vintera 70s Tele Deluxe would be a lot easier for me.
Here's a link to a pdf documenting (with links to audio) an interesting recent shootout between a '73 WRHB, current MIM reissue, Lollar, Creamery, and Squier WRHB. Spoiler: the Squier was lower output and cleaner, but the other 4 were difficult to differentiate.
Not 100% scientific but it's a fun read.
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/wp-conte ... -3-WKM.pdf
I'm sure some Fender dealer in '64 looked at the new Duo-Sonic II and thought, "That's not a Duo-Sonic. That's a Mustang".

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Re: Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Post by Mechanical Birds » Wed Aug 26, 2020 1:39 am

Cool deal, thanks! After posting this I found a thread on TDPRI where someone disassembled one and found it to be largely similar to the PAF thing, only it had two more bar magnets. Gonna check that out though too

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Re: Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Post by jvin248 » Wed Aug 26, 2020 2:21 am

Mechanical Birds wrote:
Wed Aug 26, 2020 1:39 am
Cool deal, thanks! After posting this I found a thread on TDPRI where someone disassembled one and found it to be largely similar to the PAF thing, only it had two more bar magnets. Gonna check that out though too
Do you have the link? I did a search and only found the prior re-issue standard PAF style WRHBs, other than news of the Vintera. Nothing definitely of the new pickups which are supposed to use CuNiFe.

At $200 each on Fender's website ... there will likely be few who are going to dismantle just to look inside. A pickup builder may do it for benchmarking though.

.

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Re: Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Post by Larsongs » Wed Aug 26, 2020 5:31 am

Mechanical Birds wrote:
Wed Aug 26, 2020 1:39 am
Cool deal, thanks! After posting this I found a thread on TDPRI where someone disassembled one and found it to be largely similar to the PAF thing, only it had two more bar magnets. Gonna check that out though too
2 more bar magnets? That wouldn't make them the same. IMO..

More like, they're the same only different...

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Re: Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Post by timtam » Wed Aug 26, 2020 5:40 am

They added magnets on the sides once before when they "revoiced" the reissue WRHBs IIRC. Might have been the Renaldo JM ones. I seem to recall Novak or someone published pics. There have been quite a few supposed changes to the reissues over the years, never clearly documented or given a clear part number change.
"I just knew I wanted to make a sound that was the complete opposite of a Les Paul, and that’s pretty much a Jaguar." Rowland S. Howard.

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Re: Has anyone taken apart the Vintera Wide Range Humbucker yet?

Post by Mechanical Birds » Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:50 am

Here’s what I found. Info comes from production diagram the guy was sent by a Fender employee:

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/vintera-w ... so.969376/

And yeah, the new CuNiFe ones are one thing, I was talking specifically the Vintera ones though which aren’t the CuNiFe ones that I think are being used in the AP and AO lines?

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