All user reviews for the Kent Armstrong Distortion

This is a humbucking electric guitar pickup made by Kent Armstrong. It is called the Distortion, which implies that it is to be used with a distortion pedal/amp distortion. The sound is definitely favorable for this type of music. It significantly cuts feedback on high-gain settings, which is useful in the world of playing concerts and really rocking out. The unfortunate side effect of this is that using it on clean settings is not nearly as useful. The pickups greatly mask the qualities of the guitars. I bought these pickups a couple years ago, thinking that adding them to my Strat would solve my distortion problems. I later discovered that while they did solve my feedback issues, they lost the depth and warmth that my original single-coil pickups had delivered. Since I eventually discovered that I liked the old sound more, I switched the pickups back, and instead replaced the pickups in my Les Paul with these. I still found that although my Feedback issues were gone, I didn't really like the tone that came with these on my Les Paul, and put the original humbuckers back. In that case they were extremely ill-suited. I think that overall, you're better off replacing a Strat, Tele, or Jaguar-esque guitar with something like this, as it accentuates the distorted highs and mids that those guitars favor.
I think that if you are only interested in using a guitar for distorted sounds, and have the resources to use different guitars for different functions, then these pickups are possibly worth your while. They really do cut feedback and really accentuate the distorted frequencies that we rockers love so much. However, if you are looking for anything resembling diversity, avoid these at all costs, since they are among the least versatile I've ever tried.