Ceramic Magnet Vs Alnico 5

Alnico is nice and warm and great for blues.

Ceramic magnet vs alnico 5.

The alnico 2 tends to sound just a little more organic woody and. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool. You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction. There are different numbers associated with alnico magnets such as alnico 2 or alnico 5.

These magnets are softer than ceramic magnets and provide a weaker magnetic field. So we often hear. That lower inductance means a little less in the way of lower midrange tone and again more brightness. Alnico 8 has a lower residual induction but a higher coercive force.

The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. However when the magnet geometry is ideal or the magnet is used with iron steel elements in a magnetic circuit then the. By some players the ceramic magnets are given a bad reputation when compared to. But it all depends on the pickup.

Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides. Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most. Alnico has a higher inductance due to the iron content technically ferrite magnets are made from iron oxide so to generalize alnico will increase the inductance a bit and sound a bit warmer than a ceramic in the same pickup. The weaker magnetic field created by alnico magnets is said to give them a warmer smoother quality than a ceramic magnet but at the cost of reduced gain.

Due to the strong magnetic pull the alnico viii is a nice middle ground between the punch and clarity from a ceramic pickup and the sweet organic sound of an alnico which brings us to ceramic. Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico. Ceramic magnets have a lower inductance since they are not metallic. Alnico 5 has more magnetic material and less ferric material resulting in slightly lower inductance.

A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. Alnico 2 is a little weaker resulting in a slightly warmer tone. This immediately suggests that alnico 8 will have a larger magnetic field compared to alnico 5 when magnets are short compared to their pole area.