We feel strongly that the sonic character of guitar pickups is not accurately portrayed by simplistic and unsophisticated graph bars published by the likes of duncan and dimarzio. In fact they can be misleading. Sonic character is far more complex and must necessarily include sharpness of attack, loudness and one or two other aspects.
There is another characteristic of guitar sound known as Presence. It is different to bass and treble and it adds a cutting edge (bite) to the sound that commands attention as if the sound is shouting "Listen to me, I want your attention" Pickups produce presence mainly as a function of attack and springs from the crest of the attack envelope like a surfer kick-starts his ride down waves or a baseball bat hitting the ball. But it's not that alone .... it has a component of upper mid frequencies projected by the crest of attack. This happens on high plain-string notes as well as low wound-string notes and even in bass pickups.
All Kinman Aged-Sound models do not produce the typical low mid scoop on the wound strings which means the midrange is full. The plain strings are also fuller and somewhat sweeter than conventional non-aged sound pickups for much the same reason. Both these attributes work together to produce a stronger and gutsier sound than vintage and more defined overall. Also they’re very conducive to distortion.
The human hearing system is easily fooled into hearing more or less treble/brightness and bass consequent to the intensity and bandwidth of the midrange. Most models produce approximately the same pure treble and pure bass so I have indicated only the extent of the midrange with 4 being more bandwidth than a vintage model which is referenced at 1. Remember that the bass and trebles are colored by the extent of midrange, the greater bandwidth of midrange the greater the coloration of highs and lows.
| Avn-62 | About as strong as a typical vintage Strat pickup - Mids: 3 |
| AVn-59 | Very strong - Mids: 4 |
| SCn | Exceptionally strong - Mids: 5 |
| AVn-69 | Noticeably stronger again - Mids: 6 |
| Hx-85 | Downright powerful -heading in the direction of a P-90 - Mids: 8 |
The above representations are also simplistic but at least give a meaningful guide. We feel the best way to access the sonic character of a pickup is to read the verbal descriptions which use emotive language springing from the most outstanding or the most exciting characteristics (the things that are prominent).
All that aside, any interpretation of sonic characteristics depend of the experience of the customer, the more experience the better because experience teaches us what various characteristics sound like and in the case of Kinman pickups(because our advanced technology’s ability to produce a higher order of sound that the usual) some of those descriptions need a little imaginative embellishing. A novice will have very little understanding of any description.