The sound that started it all — perfected.
Vintage soul. Engineered without compromise.
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Impersonator E56
The sound that started it all — perfected.
Vintage soul. Engineered without compromise.
Vintage Strat® pickups gave the world magic — and some problems ...
such as piercing bridge, Volume imbalance, 50~60Hz mains hum, warbling notes from excessively strong magnets and the infamous overbearing badly behaved plain G-3rd string.
Leo Fender’s 1950s design was brilliant for its time. But it was never perfected.
Kinman perfected it with the following Zero-Hum vintage models ....
All of which have glassy highs, airy chime, great instrumental twang and the classic low mid scoop — without hum, without string-pull warbling, without strings-into-fret crash. Just pure, gorgeous, uncluttered open, airy Strat tone without the usual vintage compromises. Positions 2 and 4 are utterly Knopfler-esque.
The low output Impersonator E69 neck pickup is particularly open and airy with a snappy twang, classic low mid scoop and brilliant highs. Also it has a particularly light and airy feel.
Our Impersonator E56 middle and neck pickups deliver strong vintage ’50s brilliance and is the perfect bridge (volume-wise) between the lower output neck and the higher output bridge models and yet pos2 and 4 retain 95% of the Knopfler-esque sound.
The new Impersonator E58 bridge pickup has carefully sculpted ultra vintage tone, with it's authentic vintage Strat sound in all it's glory BUT it's higher output balances perfectly and tonally with the middle and neck pickup in this revised v2 set. In the bridge position it is what vintage never achieved: higher output with rich piano-mid authority, wonderful twang, balanced output and tone with the middle and neck, and sweet highs — no unpleasant razor edge and no icepick.
All five positions: Noiseless - Zero Hum.
No crude RWRP compromise.
Sustain that breathes and feels.
This is not a re-creation. It is the completion and the perfecting of the original 1952 concept.
Kinman Gen-2 pickups — the Gold Standard of Strat tone. Also available in our supreme Gen-3 Magnum Opus format.
Noiseless & Zero-Hum — Precisely Defined
If you're searching for the best noiseless Strat pickups, you've found the original pioneer. Chris Kinman has spent over 30 years identifying and solving the problems that traditional stacked pickups fail to solve: IE eliminating hum while preserving the full dynamic response, harmonic bloom and dynamically expressive feel of a genuine vintage Stratocaster pickup. It took a Patented magnetic invention to achieve this lofty performance. 30 years experience accounts for our claims to be the King of Noiseless (Zero-Hum). We call them Zero-Hum™ pickups because that is technically more accurate than the deceivious term "noiseless." Hum generated inside the pickup is eliminated. However, buzz noise generated elsewhere in the guitars wiring is a different phenomenon and can be minimized only with proper shielding. See >Technical > Perfect Guitar Shielding for newer guitars)
Signal Chain Matters
For maximum tone and dynamic range, use a low-capacitance cable — as with all passive pickups. Learn why ordinary cables restrict performance Any old cable won't do if you want great sound.
*Stratocaster* and Strat* are a Trade Marks of Fender Musical Instrument Corp. Kinman is not connected to Fender.
** Alnico-K is a unique proprietary rod magnet developed by Kinman in 1985. It has 40% less string pull than Alnico-5 so sustain is longer and there is much less clatter from string crash and no Strat-itis string warble ... and yet it produces the identical sound of Alnico-5.
