« EMG's fattest single coil. »

EMG is the market leader when it comes to active pickups. They also sell their models in the size of single coils too for people who have really long signal chains or just want the huge output and tone of an active pickup in the size of a single coil. With EMG their modern design give you a modern sound. Guitarist are pretty traditional but EMG's are starting to become tradition now with their unique approach to pickups. With EMG pickups they use a rail magnet that is pretty weak. With this weak rail magnet you get two advantages. It does not produce must magnetic drag on the strings. This drag would lower your sustain and can even pull your notes out of tune if your magnet is too powerful. With the long rail magnet there is no dead zones in the magnetic field. On some pickups if you bend the string away from the pole piece you may get a slight loss in signal because the string is farther away from the magnet. Thanks to the active preamp you do not have to load the pickup with super powerful magnets to get the tone but since the preamp is active you will need to wire it up with a at least one 9v battery to power the whole system. The SA has a much thicker tone than the EMG S does. You can say if the S is an 81 the SA is an 85. The 85 is known to be the fatter cousin of the 81 and this relationship is similar. Because this pickup has a fatter tone it sounds less of a single coil than the S does. The S has a brighter tone like the 81 but also like a single coil. The SA is much fatter in tone and has more beef to it. You can run this pickup and just about any position. In the bridge it will give you a great beefy tone and in the neck you will get super smooth high gain leads. If you are looking for a active signle coil with fat tone the EMG SA is one of the fattest.