I have a nice starfire 4. What are some upgrade options folk have liked for upgrading the pickups?
To respond, it would help to know the age of your Starfire, what pickups are in it already, what you do not like about them. what pickups you do like and what music you intend to play with them. Most of the pickups that have been in the Starfire IV over the years have been quite good.
Having said that, I have a Starfire V from 2001 that had the Fender-designed HB-1 pickups in it (not to be confused with teh Guild-designed HB-1) and I changed them out for TV Jones Power'Trons. I like the change. A lot.
I also think that both the 60ies Guild minihumbuckers and the 70ies to 90ies Guild HB-1s are perfectly for the Starfire IV from those eras. Don't remember much if any changed vintage Starfire IV at all. Also the later 90ies SD made SD-1 (a SD in a HB-1 cover) are great. Not everybody was happy with the Fender designed HB-1.
Ralf
Ah o.k., so jiagap asks about his 2004 Corona Strafire IV with Fender HB-1s and if there are other options for those pickups. Makes sense.It's a very late Corona originally advertised as an '05.
If you are talking a Newark St. Starfire IV the issue is that the bridge pup is underwound (BHK used a defective vintage pickup as master copy as far as I understood) and hence not balanced to the neck pickup, so some owners had the bridge pup rewound for a better match. I also heard that somebody simply switched the neck and bridge pup on the Newark St. Starfire IV to achieve a better tone.
Thanks Dave, yes that is the story Guild told us here: https://guildguitars.com/a-deeper-look-at-the-starfire-pickup/The NS LB-1 bridge pickup uses 41 gauge (I think) wire but is likely wound with around the same number of turns as the neck p'up (using 42 gauge wire) and so reads lower on the ohmmeter. The thicker the wire the lower the resistance per unit of measurement. So the pickup isn't really defective—Guild wound some anti-hums this way in the '67–70 period—just kinda unusual.
Ah! I remember, the normal BHK made HB-1 would most probably not fit in the cutouts of a Corona SF-4... as Gad shows here: https://www.gad.net/Blog/2011/11/25/guild-full-sized-hb1-and-sd1-pickup-variations/Ralf, I think GAD was talking about the standard-sized "HB-2" pickups on the Chinese M-75. Those are not available yet.