All user reviews for the Duncan Designed HB103

Seymour Duncan Designed HB103. Ceramic magnets, 6 slug pole pieces, 6 flat head pole pieces. This is basically Seymour Duncan’s import version of their USA made SH6 Duncan Distortion. I got this along with a SH6 to compare them to each other. To my surprise they sounded identical. Both VERY tight with great definition, amazing for low tunings and metal music. My only complaint for these is they use cheaper parts than the USA's to save money. Also you can't buy them new, only used so there isn't any warranty if you get ahold of some. Other than that these are very good and a great cheaper alternative to the SH6 Duncan Distortion. But to get into how they sound. They are very tight, articulate pickups. Used by many bands by in the 80s and 90s for it’s aggressive tone, tight low end, and great articulation. Thick but not Invader thick, just about the right amount to where it’s full sounding but not too much to where it starts to smear everything together. Some pickups while super tight, like the L500XL, are a bit thin. So getting scalpel like tightness but you lose much of the size and power because the tone is too thin. These along with the Duncan Distortion are a happy medium between size, power and tightness, articulation. The model I had was actually a neck version so the bridge version may be quite different. In the neck this is similar to the Super Distortion. It being thicker makes the pickup appear bassier. The aggressiveness makes it hard to get a good clean tone and creamy leads, so it’s better suited for heavier styles. Not the same pickup but take a listen to “Walk” by Pantera. The solo is a Super Distortion in the neck, similar tone and feel so for a good idea of how these would sound this is a good example

The HB 103 is the microphone that Team many guitars made in Korea ... etc. including mine, an Ibanez SZ 320. It is supposed to be a cheap version of Seymour Duncan SH6. I replaced it with a Duncan SH 4 Semour. If HB 103 is not a bad mic itself, he must recognize the one hand not a draft, especially with distortion. In addition, it has an unfortunate tendency to microphone (if we play hard ... and I play hard ...) So far I have replaced the bridge pickup. The neck pickup should follow shortly (most likely an SH2). In the tips I post something about the color code of the micro (nothing to do with the real SD, it would have been too simple). In short after three years of good and services here oaux HB 103 retired.