The Chetboard

I have a new Gretsch 5120 with it's "specially designed" Humbuckers. When I played it at the shop it sounded nice - (like my idea of what a Gretsch otta sound like). So I bought it. At $750 (plus 12% tax) the price was right. Now what I would like to know is this: Is there all that much difference in the sound produced by Filtertrons and that by Humbuckers. I mean they both are designed to eliminate hum. Is there anything else I'm missing that makes them so different from each other? Thanks

Humbuckers have more output

They're louder quicker. The Filter Trons are a little mellower

A bit of elaboration on Norm's comment: If by "humbucker" you mean Gibson-style humbuckers, Norm is correct; but there are a lot of different humbucking pickups made. Some, like the filtertrons, have fewer windings on the coils and produce lower volume but a different range of frequencies. Perhaps the humbuckers on your 5120, being "specially designed", are made so as to sound more like filtertrons. There are a number of "filtertron-esque" humbuckers being produced.

TV Jones has converted a number of 5120's to his TV Jones Classic Filtertrons. They could probably tell you the difference between your pickups and the Filtertrons.

Jeff Stovall

It's mostly output, or how many windings. Gretsch used to have weaker output pickups than the Gibson Humbucker. Chet experimented a lot with different amounts of windings around the coil. Al

Thanks, Lads. I suspected (at least a bit) that the 'specially designed' Humbuckers by Gretsch might have meant 'bordering the performance of filtertrons'. Listening to comparisons on youtube of the 5120 and the 6120, I don't notice a lot of difference in the two sounds. I don't think I am going to attempt to replace my 5120 pickups with TV Jones - just don't seem worth the added improvement.