Sound: This is a fairly hot pickup, I use it in the bridge position of my Fender Jaguar (with a Seymour Duncan JB Jr in the neck position), but I used to have it in the neck. I play through Smallsound/Bigsound TAFM-Devi Ever Disaster Fuzz-DOD FX35-EHX Small Stone-Ibanez CS505-EHX Deluxe Memory Man-Laney VC15.
It was too hot for the neck, the output was a lot higher than the JB Jr in the bridge, but it sounded great; really articulate and pretty mid heavy.
In the bridge position it sounds even better. It's very bright and sounds like a traditional Jaguar bridge pickup for surf and rock and roll, but the hotter-than-vintage output lets it sound great for aggressive distorted playing, without getting muddy or unclear. Even with crazy gain from fuzz pedals the bright, clear quality keeps the sound at least a little bit together and punchy. // 8
Reliability & Durability: Not much could really happen to a pickup to break it, but this seems very well made: no wires are loose, the coils are fixed well, the output wires seem to be attached very securely. It was installed in my guitar when I bought it, and I've used it heavily for a year now, including plenty of gigs, and unsurprisingly nothing bad has happened. Good quality manufacturing, as I've observed with all Seymour Duncan products. // 9
Impression: The pickup does what it says on the tin: it's a hotter output replacement for a vintage-style Jaguar pickup. It keeps that sound while adding something of its own, and I'm very happy with the sound and build quality, there's nothing I dislike about it.
I'm sure it can be bought specifically for the bridge or the neck, with a neck-specific model having less output to fix the problem I mentioned with it being too loud in comparison to the other pickup. // 8
