The world's most expensive pickups happened on the nights when I first met my ex wives.

You know what makes every guitar sound better? A tuner.

Those pickups must be pretty greasy with all the snake oil all over them.

Me: Mom can we have AC/DC? Mom: No, we have AC/DC at home. AC/DC at home: 9:07

I could definitely hear the silver coming thru. Rumor is they sound even better with gold tuners and a diamond pick tho...

So that's what John Travolta had in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction

It`s really honest of you saying those pickups aren`t worth such an amount of money. Way to go dude!

Dude, you genuinely have one of the nicest guitar collections out of anybody that I’ve seen on KZfaq. I love literally everything on your wall. You sir, have impeccable taste.

Silver? Pff... get back to me when they got Mithril pickups.

Put them up against those 15$ (for 3) Chinese pickups and do a blind test. Then we will see how good they are.

Pickups for the guitarist who loves to tell you how much his gear costs, whilst he sneers at your Squire!! Met a few of those!

SILVER GOES FOR ABOUT 20$ AN OZ , NICE BUT WAYYYYY OVER PRICED

Should have got clear pickup covers to show off the silver.

They sound like at least 600 bucks being flushed.....

Would have been nice to hear back to back riffs with these vs the original pickups. Without that, I agree those pickups are not worth that much.

My ex girlfriend was very “touch sensitive “ but she never cost me $1k

Diminishing returns are in full effect for this type of gear. They sound great, but not an extra $800 great.

My pickups are even more expensive and EXTREMELY rare. They are wound with Sasquatch hair and they really GROWL!

Not sounding good to me through my headphones. Thank you Darrel for being so candid and honest in your reviews

They sound like high-output, modern Strat pickups. Nothing special at all.

I absolutely LOVE that you didn't give the standard "they sound great and they may be a good investment for people that are particular about their tone." LOVE the honesty. LONG LIVE VALUE!!!

VIDEO SECTIONS: Part 1 - So what's the big deal? 2:08 Part 2 - Hendrix with a twist! 5:44 Part 3 - What do they actually sound like? 6:50 Part 4 - So are they worth it?? 11:21 ZEYPHR PICKUPS: imp.i114863.net/bXDmg

Would love to see a comparison with these against a few of the top builders, and then against a few of the mass produced upgrades, then against stock fender pickups. I would love to hear these against Bareknuckle, Fralin, Thro-bak, etc. On a closing note, if they were the best pickups money could buy, Eric Johnson would have tried them.

I really don't think price matters. I can't afford them but if you can, and it inspires you to play more, then it's worth it. It's more of a subjective point. One person can go buy a $50 pawn shop guitar and create a masterpiece and another person might buy a $10,000 high end guitar and do nothing with it. So if it inspires you to play more and create something wonderful, then I think that's what matters most. Great video, btw. You always make great content that puts me in a good mood.

Wow, That’s really honest. I’m impressed. I’d love to hear a comparison them and the copper counterpart. That’s where the truth lies. Thanks!

Love the honesty! I’d like to hear more clean tones but that’s just my personal preference. Big fan of the channel , keep it up!

Silver Wire? Call me when it's GOLD! But seriously, this reminds me of the hand wired Tube Screamers that really don't sound that much different that any other 808 or TS9. Darrell, I appreciate you doing this video. For this price, you can upgrade with better pickups and still have money left over to upgrade your amp too.

Well at least we can confirm that Darrel's not sponsored....

I appreciate your honesty. You could've easily said that they're worth their high price tag, but you were just honest about your opinion. Great stuff man! Also wish I could play like you

I really like them! You really need to hear these using some good headphones. Now use these with the world's most expensive strings.

Hi friends, I come from an audiophile background where tweeky connectors, wire and such are common and make outrageous claims to improve such and such, but are mostly BS. I just wanted to say this, using solid silver wire to wind pickups is a waste of money. Most of the audio signal travels in the outer 5 to 10 percent surface of the wire, which is known as Skin Effect. You could plate a multi stranded copper wire with silver and it would sound the same as solid silver wire for a hell of a lot less. Just saying....

Brilliant video , I've always thought there's a difference in sound with quality pick ups .....and you've proved it though its understandable with the inherent qualities of silver. Thank you Darrel....guess what I think ill stick with my Arcane pups.

Honestly I don't care for the sound of them. I like bright chimey

They sound just like the $20 pickups from GFS.

Silver is only 18$ an ounce. It’s not the silver that makes them expensive. It’s the pamphlet with all the snake oil bs in it.

Darrell, this is why your channel keeps growing - you don’t sellout for the dollar. I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate your honesty. There have been more than one you tuber who review products favorably simply because they’re getting to keep the product’s free of charge. One in particular who I enjoyed immensely (I’ll just say from Boston) did a disservice to himself and his viewers and lost my subscription over a sellout raving about a piece of crap. As a guitarist for over 30 years, I think your channel provides the best content consistently and, is fun to watch and learn about new products feeding our passion. Chris

Ooookay, I can't even afford to drool on those pickups. And I have to agree with your conclusions.

Can you get these silver pickups relic'd? You know - maybe where somebody spits on them and rubs them in the dirt a little bit to make the silver look old and dirty! Then I might not mind paying the higher freight for these :-)

It depends on the gauge & quality of the silver SD use for these. Silver with fewer impurities or single crystal structure will provide a purer signal...the same is true for copper.

I am really enjoying your videos! They are honest and real. Also you inspire me to play guitar. Started a few months ago, and just looking at you play is like «wow»

ok, I'm drinking the koolaid, they sound great

Actually it’s platinum, gold, silver, copper then aluminum for conductivity. I’m a retired electronics instructor. I’m guessing I’d have to get a second mortgage for gold wire. Lol

A few years back I put some Seymour Duncan Five-Two pickups into my old Strat @ $75 each. $225 for 3. I think they are better sounding than the stock pickups, but it is all subjective matter of taste etc. I am happy with them. I even think they sound better than the silver. I must be silly. I use a 25 year old Blues Deluxe amp. Tube city. And a line 6 modeling amp. And an Acoustic bass amp. I like my tone.

Nothing better than some Knopfler style fingerpicking to test dynamic range.

Wait,.. that's the same box my ex keeps my soul in...must get pickups...

Was thinking of buying these, then I remembered that I have a tone control on my guitar, and a few more on my amp etc.

Darrell can make any p/u on any guitar sound great!

I have to be honest_they sounded incredible and i would love to put them in my Strat. I would find it hard to spend one thousand when theres so many great pick up builders out there today.

Thank you, Darryl for "running interference" for the rest of us! At that price point I was in no danger of going into debt buying these pickups- but it sure was nice of you to give us a taste of what they sounded like! Also, I trust your opinion that they are not worth the expense! Thanks, again!

"Inside this box, we're gonna test out the worlds most expensive pickups" How do you even do that? You can't get a guitar into that box, let alone yourself.

it sounds terrific and i'd love to do that squier test. "Oh? well, this is an affinity. that's higher end than the base model. i guess that difference is what you are hearing"

I would love to see these as humbuckers wound like a paf or jb

Respect just went up for your honesty. Easily could of shilled for the company but gave an honest review instead. Well played man!

I wind my pickups with strands of cotton candy and they sound really sweet.(LOL !!!)

I’ve spent a lot more money than $1000 on strat pickups. It was just five or six sets, not one, and some of them were shipped in a complete guitar, not just a fancy box. I’d love to hear the Zephyrs compared to the new Fender Ultra Strat singles. If the SD’s sound better, it might be cheaper to upgrade pickups than entire guitars.

...can't tell how many time I came back, listen to your wonderful rhythm & lead part at 09:54. I'd really love if you would think about making an extended version because every time I have to close my eyes following the excellent voicing! A really good tune after one of those days, you know... Thank you very much!

I'm going to stick with my superconducting windings on my strat. Liquid nitrogen container in the pick guard and I'm ready to rock.

Most I ever spent on a pair of pickups was $350 for a set of Lollar Firebird pickups. Dramatically improved the tone over the crappy stock ceramic pups that came in it... no regrets at all! Then again, they weren't $800... I just can't see spending that much for pickups, unless I was upgrading a $10,000 guitar (which I don't have) :)

The audience will never hear the difference, live or recorded.

I remember reading about these pickups last year. I think they started out as a conceptual experiment but then actually went into production. Sounds great! I’ve never seen a better demo of these particular pickups. They have a unique sound. Are they worth $300/each? I guess it depends on how much disposable income you have haha! Out of curiosity, what resistance are the pots?

this was my idea. my final year's university project was to create 2 humbuckers, 1 from gold, 1 with silver and compare them to copper ones. would costed me alot of money, so i called Bare Knuckles to get sponsorship for my project. the guy said my idea is really good however his manager would not like new ideas, so i never got to make them. very interesting video Darrell :)

The socks 😭

You can put any cheap guitars in SRV's hands & fingers and I'm sure 100% they will sound way more expensive than those fancy silver pickups...

"Ooh wow I wonder how much the world's most expensive pickups can possibly cost" *less than my graphics card* ". . . . am I a bad person"

Today is 11/04/2019. I just looked up the price of silver and it's only $17.75/oz. (in U.S. dollars). There's probably not an ounce of silver on each of those pickups.Even if there is, we're talking $60. Double that price to turn it into wire = $120. Pay the person that wound them $120/set, just because your feeling generous. Now you've got $240. The bobbins and magnets didn't cost $60. How long does it take Pro to wind a set of pups? I suspect these pickup winders are only making about $120 per day, not per set of completed pickups. These pickups are absolutely NOT worth the price. It sounds like Seymour Duncan is trying to become the PRS of guitar pickups. And if the rest of the guitar is wired with copper ?

WOW, $1K for a set of silver wound pickups is mind blowing! Thank you for your honesty and integrity in putting up your own dollars. It's nice to visit how the other half lives however I am very content to stay on my side of the tracks (Reverb, eBay, Guitar Fetish) for less pricey options. 😂

That was amazing. KZfaq audio is very sterile and compressed, but I could hear much more clarity. I have seen these used for the same price as new. They don't lose any value. And that clear pick guard is so dope. I wouldn't change a thing. And yes, they're worth the price just for the rarity and coolness factor. But a luxury item for sure.

Makes sense to me. I use Finnish made esoteric-ish microphone cables that are dense silver wound. While the difference is nominal to most ears, the silver does obviously impart a fairly profound sense of clarity above 2.5khz, and really smoothing out the 4-5k where it could get harsh. To me, these pickups will be intriguing to record makers and the clean gain crowd. I can imagine them being fairly unruly with a driven plexi sound..just an opinion be well

Silver has about 5.6% less resistivity than copper (at 20º), not a noticeable difference and probably not worth the price.

Unfortunately they still sound like Seymour Duncans

I bought a Fender FSR Tele 2017 Mexican model on-line last year for about $550 including pickups, neck, body, tuners, bridge, in other words a whole guitar... no case. It looks great, it plays perfectly (after a little bit of work on the nut and a setup to specification), and it sounds fantastic. I've been playing for a long long time, have had maybe 20 guitars in that time, 60 's Les Pauls, 335s, 330s, Strats, and this new Tele, etc. and I have found that the most important thing about how a guitar sounds is... the players hands. One more comment... it always makes me laugh when in these demos people take super expensive guitars like $5000 custom shop or vintage guitars, or in this case pickups, and then the first thing they do is run it through a hi-gain effects pedal that costs $150 or less. If you compared the most basic Squire Strat to the guitar in this demo run through the dirt box you would be very hard pressed to hear any difference that can't be completely eliminated with the tone pots or by tweeking the amp... Silly.

You genuinely have a beautiful way of playing!

Wiping your hand oil on the silver?!?! Darrell! 🥺

That Indiana Jones intro... Hahahaha! You're too much, man. 😂

I plan to purchase a set one day and use pickup covers to hide my dirty secret. Not rich, not using it as bling, nor am I attracted to the gimmick, just love their sound. Price is stupid, but glad Seymour Duncan decided to make these.

Pretty sure another common wiring setup for a Hendrix strat was a blender mod on the 3rd pot. This allowed you to add in either the neck or bridge, depending on what you already had selected: allowing for just neck and bridge, as well as all 3 pickups on, using a 5 way switch to select where the majority of the tonal focus is, adding in the pickup that isn't selected. Way more outputs than a standard strat, using all the original electronics, and only adding/removing a few wires. Can be done with any standard strat with a 5 way switch. I wire all of my strats like that, and you get some CRAZY tones that you wouldn't normally get, as well as all the factoy tones, plus a master tone control! You should check it out!!

Hey Darrell, I really do appreciate your honesty. If I had money running out my butt I would probably buy a set. I thought they sounded exceptionally well. I don't think I will ever afford such a luxury as these unless the price dropped completely out the bottom. They do sound good though. Do you reckon Ol' Dave of Pink Floyd could squeeze some long cryin' bended notes on a set these? I agree with you that they do sound excellent... But, I don't think they are really worth such a high cost. I hope the folks at Seymour Duncan don't get too mad at you for giving an honest opinion. Thanks for being an honest person.

Wait, the heavens didn't open up and shine down upon him? Sounded like a strat.... Go figure. A really nice strat I'll give you that.

Here you go, an excellent recording and great live show, played and performed with a $800 guitar! Yeah, but, like, what if I spent more than that on my pickups? You'd get .01% better results. SOLD!

I'm seeing a logic flaw with this. Wouldn't the soldering ruin the whole point??

hand wound is a snake oil gimmick. It's not like you're hand carve an archtop guitar where the luthier constantly listens for overtone as he carves it down.

You think those are expensive pickups? Just wait for DiMarzio to launch their limited line of Platinum wired pickups!

One of the 19th century US billionaires made millions in gold then bought from another millionaire a gold mine mined out but the previous owner hadn't considered checking it for silver and the new owner made billions in silver mining. Silver mining is where dollar comes from as there was a silver mine in a valley in Austria which produced so much money it became known as thaller (thal means dale in German) which became dollar.

6:32 *Darrell* : I got THREE PUs, $300 a piece - yet move 99% of time from neck to bridge PU, and back to neck PU. *Center pickup* : Am I a joke to you?

Marketing gimmick. As I've said on my own channel, pickups are only one aspect/variable when it comes to tone. In the right hands with all the variables dialed in (pickups, amp, effects, fingers, etc), cheap pickups can sound amazing, while expensive pickups in the wrong hands (not Darrell's!) with a few variables off, can sound horrible.

Lmao I love your intros 😂

A sobering thought. Another time where silver was used for exotic wiring was Project Manhattan - when there was a shortage of precision copper wire. I think the plutonium weapons actually contained silver-wound coils!

I'm not a guitar player, but while watching the TV show Gunsmoke, there was a line that said "humbuck him" - humbuck: to smooth talk.

Yeah good conclusion, i just wanted to write that I don’t hear any difference in comparison to regular alnico pickups, and for that money I should...

Today silver is worth $17.25 per ounce. At $1000 I could purchase over 3.5lbs of silver. 3:55

Cool video! I thought the same thing. Great pickups but not $1k+ when putting them into a guitar. That said I think they have their place and that is on a high end custom or a top of the line Warmouth Partscaster. I think these are overkill on any Fender except a Custom Shop. You want a high end Fender, get a US made G&L.

Love the fact that they are sooooo smooth. Use the pure silver as an audio interconnect and its like lifting a blanket off your speakers.

They sound good, but you could buy a new guitar for that much.

Silver Price: $18 per ounce. So, they are charging $200/ounce. Hmmm

+1 for direct comparison to budget pickups.

Honestly this whole channel is basically video after video of "gear hardly matters, a good guitarist will sound good anywhere"

I figured they weren't going to be worth it. It's definitely an interesting set of pickups. I notice not a single famous strat player that anyone has heard of has ever said anything about owning these, and they could actually afford them. Personally, I thought it was getting a little ridiculous when I saw the price on the Hendrix set.

I like my SD Antiquities just fine, thank you

darrel , i like you thumbnail once i saw it , i spilled out my coffee hahah

Hi Darrell! First and foremost I say enough how much I've learned and love your videos. I'm relatively new to play, 2 months to be exact. I have 5 guitars that I run through a vypyr vip 1. It's a good setup for a beginner but I will be upgrading soon lol. I'm wondering if you could do an all amp video, specifically on getting to the sounds you want, obviously the better the amp the better the sound. I cant get that classic AC/DC sound with my SG. Thanks have a great day🤘