All user reviews for the Lindy Fralin Blues Special Set

The guitar is a japanese reissue 54 strat, swamp ash body, 1-piece maple neck. The guitar is naturally bright sounding.
Previous set were dimarzio/fender OEM pickups.

The blues special is not hot/overwound in terms of output. It is very clean/less overdriven compared to stock fender pickups. But in terms of tone, it is darker/smoother/less harsh, but still has plenty of bite and quack.

I feel the neck position is really designed for bluesy solo playing. It has strong character. It sounds fat and woody with plenty of midrange. Very SRV sounding.

The in-between position has enough quack. But the 4th position (neck-mid) may sound too dark if the pickup height is not set properly. 2nd position sounds nice and funky. Generally I set my pickups low, about 0.7-1.0cm above the pickguard.

I put metal baseplate underneath the bridge pickup. It change the tone a lot. Without, the bridge pickup is very shrill and trebly, almost unuseable. 

The bridge pickup is quite strong, and sounds great with overdrive/distortion, but obviously not as full/thick sounding as humbucker. It can do classic rock/metal well (VH, maiden, even metallica, megadeth).

One thing I notice when I compare with other pickups (fender, dimarzio, duncan), is that they all sound like a strat. But the fralin sounds different in terms of clarity and note detail. For example with the 4th position, the fralin sound almost like an acoustic, while the other is just usual strat quacky sound. It's like taking picture of the same object, but with higher resolution camera. More detail is revealed on the fralin, especially in the mids/lower mids freq.

Compared to lollar blackface (I swap pickguard with a friend), the blues special has more "flavor". Texas flavor it is. Mids and highs are exaggerated in a bluesy way. While the blackface is more neutral, with less tendency of becoming muddy in the mids/low mids. I think the lollar is slightly more versatile, but blues special is the ultimate for blues.