Seymour Duncan Launches AHB-1 Blackouts Active Humbuckers

Jul 26, 2007

After the resounding success of their active Dave Mustaine LiveWires humbucker last year, Seymour Duncan, the Santa Barbara-based pickup giant, follows-up with the launch of Blackouts, a new range of 9-volt active pickups for electric guitar.

Before Duncan started designing Blackouts, they did a little market research. They found that while lots of guitarists love active pickups, many wanted a tone that was less compressed, with a more extended frequency response.

In their efforts to solve those issues they discovered that some of the most popular active pickups have a critical design flaw in their circuit architecture—they use unbalanced inputs in a differential preamp. The problem is, an unbalanced differential preamp is not very effective at cancelling hum. Duncan's engineers figured out how to capture the tone that players want in an active design while using balanced inputs.

The result is that not only are the new Seymour Duncan Blackouts active humbuckers up to 14dB quieter than the competitions', but they also have more lows, more highs, and more output. Simply put, the Blackouts have more tone than other active pickups.

Players will notice the benefits of the reduced hum when they record, especially if they're around computer monitors or fluorescent lighting. As for the benefits of having more tone, well those will be apparent everywhere.

Some of the many A-list guitar artists who have switched to Blackouts include Mick Thompson of Slipknot, Dino Cazares of Divine Heresy, Corey Beaulieu of Trivium, Silenoz of Dimmu Borgir, Mike Schleibaum of Darkest Hour, and Rob Trevino of Helstar.

Blackouts are available in individual neck and bridge models, or as a two-pickup set. All versions come with all necessary mounting hardware, including pots, jack, and a battery clip.

Specifications

Neck model:

• Resonant Frequency - 750 Hz
• Average output voltage - 0.65 Volts RMS (1)
• Max. output voltage - 2.60 Volts RMS (2)
• Noise - -97dBV
• Output Impedance - 1K Ohm
• Current consumption - 350 micro-amperes
• Battery life - 1420 hours (3)
• Preamp topology - Discrete hybrid differential, FET input
• Preamp Gain - 16 dB
• Preamp Thd @ 1Vo - .003%

Bridge model:

• Resonant Frequency - 530 Hz
• Average output voltage - 2.00 Volts RMS (1)
• Max. output voltage - 2.60 Volts RMS (2)
• Noise - 96dBV
• Output Impedance - 1K Ohm
• Current consumption - 350 micro-amperes
• Battery life - 1420 hours (3)
• Preamp topology - Discrete hybrid differential, FET input
• Preamp Gain - 18dB
• Preamp Thd @ 1Vo - .003%

For more information, visit their web site at www.seymourduncan.com.