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Basically I have a highway one strat that I love to death, minus the bridge pick up. I'd ideally like something P90-ish because P90s are just the best. Any suggestions?

Hmm, I might be a bad person to weigh in because I tend to like strat pickups at more vintage spec / normal output, but I have three strats with a different set in each:

1. American Standard w/ Callaham Special Wind Fralins. These sound great all around, very balanced, classic strat sound with all of the chime and ring you'd expect for pickups that reproduce Pre-CBS models. That said, they're surprisingly the darkest of the bunch.

2. K-Line Springfield with Lollar Dirty Blondes, which is their Vintage Blondes set with a higher output bridge pickup. These sound amazing, definitely the best of the bunch. Once again classic strat sound, but I'd say more hi-fi... lots of clarity and detail, great ringing sustain.

3. '56 Custom Shop. The CS pickups have a little more grit/hair to my ears, but still plenty of clarity. The neck and middle pickups sound a bit louder and fuller to my ears, but this is something that I get on most strats. The bridge sounds a little thinner, but because of this it naturally cuts well.

Of course lots of these sonic differences have a good bit to do with the other ingredients of the guitars. Not sure if the descriptions help, but happy to throw em out there!

popvulture wrote:2. K-Line Springfield with Lollar Dirty Blondes, which is their Vintage Blondes set with a higher output bridge pickup. These sound amazing, definitely the best of the bunch. Once again classic strat sound, but I'd say more hi-fi... lots of clarity and detail, great ringing sustain.

This could very well be what i'm looking for. I've been using my middle pick up ala built to spill for a thicker tone but have been wanting my bridge to be thicker because it'll naturally be more clear. The main sets that have been on my radar are the EMG DG20s because of their mid boost circuit or some combination of Lace Sensors with a Blue, Burgundy, or Purple in the bridge. I really appreciate you chiming in and am definitely looking into these Lollars!

No prob! Lollar can wind to your specs too, I believe—if you email them and tell them you want something with output similar to a P90, I'm sure they'll have some other options for you. They're really a killer company—I can't say enough good things about their pickups.

I've got a set of Lollar Dirty Blondes in a Strat too. They sound amazing. I also have an old G&L SC-3 with the Strat-sized MFD pickups in it, and those are incredible as well - though probably a slightly different size.

I don't know if you've already chosen, but I'm gonna mimic Andy Cohen and say Zan Zandts are simply the best strat pickups out there, as I only have the VintagePlus pickups, so that's a pretty useless answer. Don't know how p90-ish they get, but my friend seems to be attached to the midrange available from Fralins SP43

The Fralin Steel Poles are pretty nice. I have a Harmonic Design S90 in the bridge of a tele and it jams. Looks like they make a strat version of the S90 as well.

Aquietcabin1978 wrote:The Fralin Steel Poles are pretty nice. I have a Harmonic Design S90 in the bridge of a tele and it jams. Looks like they make a strat version of the S90 as well.

This sounds pretty much exactly like what I'm looking for in a bridge pick up and the fact that they have a tele version means I could potentially get my strat and tele to have the same bridge sound holy shit thank you! Thanks to everyone here really because I kinda want to upgrade the rest of my set now and will be looking into the rest of these suggestions as well.