« A good sounding super hot neck pickup »

With the old original X2N I could never imagine using it in the neck position so I was quite surprised when I first saw this pickup. I had to give it a go. Dimarzio seems to want to try and make a more versatile X2N. To me this is strange because the X2N is a one trick pony metal machine and it does that well. This pickup looks like an X2N but it is way more civilized and some of the brutality seems lost. Having a super hot neck pickup is risky because if it the pickup has a lot of high end you will have an ugly sounding neck pickup. You want a fat neck pickup. This pickup seems to be on the border line. The big rail magnets are a bit weaker than the old guy so there is less magnetic drag on the strings. The pickup is also 4 conductor so you can also split it. This pickup has a bit less output than the old X2N. They have also EQ'd it well for the neck position. The high end is dialed back a lot and the low end is boosted so you get a fat neck position sound. This is what you want in a neck pickup. Even with the dialed back high end the huge magnets still pickup a ton of pick attack which is part of the X2N and D-Activator sound. This extra attack helps keep the big low end from getting overpowering and muddy. The pickup cleans up well too which is something the old X2N could never do. This pickup compliments the old X2N or the D-Activator bridge pickup nicely. Its rare that you can find a hot neck pickup that sounds good and is hot enough to balance out a hot bridge pickup. This is one of the best from Dimarzio