NS Starfire pickup and cavity photos

lungimsam

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Note that there is some melting along edges of pup bobbin. Is this normal from factory?
I also removed pup ring and mounted the pup flush to bass face because it was so close to the strings and overdriven in a bad way.

Pup top is now 10/32 E side, 9/32 G side. Pole pieces flush.
Sounds much better now.
Bass talks nicely now and the finger/fret clank has toned down and not as disruptive. Klank is more background now.
Nice fundamental.
Enjoy the pics:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/70237737@N00/80576S
 
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lungimsam

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now i just have to get something to polish up the nickel parts with...
 

mellowgerman

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Thanks for sharing and cool photo documentation there! Always good to have more close-up photos and other such resources out there for future reference.
That being said, did you play around with the height of the pole-pieces at all? Pretty sure the original Bisonics, as well as Novak and DarkStar pickups would all have notably low output (especially relative to 60-cycle hum) with the poles that far from the strings.
Also, I've never seen a melty bobbin like that on originals, Novaks, or DarkStars, but I can't imagine that hurting the sound any. I imagine the NS Bisonics are simply made up of cheaper sourced parts where the QC is lower out of the factory... but hey, no problemo as long as it sounds good, right ;)
 
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lungimsam

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Thanks mellowgerman,

I thought I’d post for any others interested. I know I like investigating models and thought I’d post it for anyone else who would be curious.

Thanks for the pointers and for your willingness to post pics in the other thread of your pup without the ring so I could see what it looks like. I like how it looks better without the plastic ring. The silver being directly against the cherry is pretty.

The output is surprisingly good, being so far away. Sounds normal. Which is surprising since it is so far from the strings. I don’t think it is any noisier than before. I’ll probably play around with the poles and get them as high as poss without that overdriven sound coming back like they had with the ring height.

I emailed Guild and will see what they say about the melting.
 

lungimsam

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Guikd’s response to the melted edges of the bobbin. It is normal:

"The rubber around the outside of the bobbin is actually there to “ground” the hardware. As you can see, there is also a ground wire soldered to the faceplate. The rubber insulates and grounds the hardware. If you look at the other “re-issues” of the BiSonic on the market, they also use a melted rubber ground."
 
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