There was a time we regarded Mini-Humbuckers and the Filtertrons as inferior designs, however, recent technical advancements here at Kinman have changed our minds.
UPDATE 13-Nov-2019: Boss Chris is a tireless innovator always looking for solutions to problems. Kinman is very pleased to announce that we have found a solution to improve the sound of Filtertrons and Mini-humbuckers outta sight. We can deliver a sound with greater clarity much like a single coil and a fair degree of twang from the low wound strings as well as produce several different sounds, in fact it turns out to be an extremely versatile pickup.. We hope to bring out our versions of mini-humbucker in 6 different flavors mid 2021. Our version of the Filtertron in 6 different exciting flavors should follow shortly after.
Update: we released our range of Mini-Buckers in 2021 but we are holding off on our versions of the Filtertron.
Here's what we previously thought ...
The Gretsch Filtertron from some accounts has a twangy sound but when I played one recently I immediately heard the low E and A string sounded muffled and very indistinct. Only the middle strings had any kind of focus and twang, and even then it wasn’t quality twang but more the product of upper midrange spikes that are the precursors to ear piercing harshness. I wondered if the pickups I tested were somehow faulty but on every sound clip on the Internet I heard the same thing, and then I read on some forums players complaining about the very same thing.
Players complain about the bad sound of the low wounds of humbuckers but Mini-buckers and Filtertrons are far worse simply because their coils are too small.
Compact (economy) pickups such as dimarzio Area (Strat) series suffer from the same problem.