All user reviews for the EMG 60X

Used as of today (played 7-8am). Cort mounted on my 11 Aero with the 81X, the only mics I've tried were those present in the original € 10 on the guitar. I play with a Peavey Vypyr 15W.
The cleans: cleans sounds superb, very accurate, without being cold, it was a fairly neutral grain but very musical to my taste: sweet and crystalline, but not too sharp, with a little reverb, delay and a slight phaser, it is right in the last Dream Theater album, I love. For bluesy or jazzy sounds, you will find better, or he must play with the EQ and knobs.
OD: not bad for blues rock a little excited (taking into account the limitation imposed upon me by my amp, especially at the OD rather poor), but nothing more.
Disto: excellent for tapping, or the lead in general. I find it slightly inaccurate at the sweeps, but again this is the amp that is at fault (tested on a Marshall 4x12 Peavey XXX +, nothing to do).
An excellent microphone, whose airy and very little grain compressed I really like!

In 2009, EMG released a newly revised preamp for all of their models. This preamp is what is used in the X series. The 60X still features the same basic tonality as the original 60, but thanks to the newly revised preamp, it is much more open and less compressed than before.

Recently, people on forums have been experimenting with running pickups at 18V to get more headroom out of their pickups. This helps them sound more organic and less linear and compressed. The newly revised X series preamp basically takes the concept of running at 18 volts to a new level.

The EMG 60X still sounds very much like the original EMG 60. It has this very clear and bright, almost single coil sound going on. It works great with clean tones, but like my previous 60 review, I’m not the biggest fan of it with high gain. The EMG 60X with its revised preamp sounds a lot more open and more organic sounding. Chords sound sweeter, and single coil notes sound a bit more like a passive pickup than an active pickup. Basically, it’s not clipping the signal as much as it used to.

The EMG 60X works in any wood you throw at it, but I find that EMGs typically sound best when they’re in mahogany. Some people argue about EMGs having a signature tone that takes over the guitar, and this is true to an extent, but wood still plays a very important factor. I’m not a huge fan of EMGs in basswood, but they can work with the correct EQ.

If you ever wished your EMG 60 sounded more open and more like a passive pickup, check out the EMG 60X. I’m still not the biggest fan of the EMG 60 series, but it does a great job at delivering good clean tones, which EMGs are fairly infamous for (and I don’t mean that in a good way).