admittedly, I'm getting on a bit and the old lug holes aren't as keen as they once were, but they sounded exactly the same to me - I also can't really tell the difference between my squier and Mex Teles and my mate's yank one. As I get longer in the tooth, I increasingly believe that pretty much everything I ever believed about guitars is total BS
John, another great demo from an expert. I had to play this video back a few times to try and hear a difference. Maybe the Tone Riders sound very, very slightly mellower, but it is so barely noticeable that I could be imagining this. It might be due to both sets being closely priced with only £8 difference between the £56 Roswell set (from DV247) and the slightly more expensive Tone Riders set costing £64. To my ears there is very little sonic difference to justify the extra £8 or 12.5% outlay for the Tone Riders, so I'm sticking with the cheaper Roswell option in my Harley Benton TE-62DB LH LPB. Your mileage may vary.
To compare seriously, you have to consider the money and personally, I found that the Roswell pickups are a very good level compared to the Tone Rider (more prestigious and especially to add to the price of the instrument). In concert you will not hear any difference.... the snobbery of guitarists with the perfect ear (virtuosos in general...)has always amused me.... Congratulations to Roswell for his microphones.... and the rest is also a matter of taste. Thank you for this very informative experience. And sutout, that the Paganini of the six strings continue to enrich the Majors for our greatest happiness....!
I sometimes wonder if an investment in a decent EQ pedal is actually better, given that you can play with the mids, high and low frequencies, perhaps changing the sound to ones liking, as for me there wasnt that much in it, like 10 to 15 % difference at best.actualy thought the Roswell sounded better in a couple of clips.
I’m an amateur but I still think having an EQ on my board is really powerful. I got an Empress ParaEQ, and I like it quite a bit. it is so “studio” like that I can tweek my sound in subtle ways that are very similar to the differences between my pick sets.
Wow! That was close -too close for comfort. I have the stock Roswell pickups in my TE-52, which I would never want to swap. They have everything I want and so much more.
Um, I can speak on this as I swapped out Roswell pickups from my Harley Benton Fusion 2, and dropped in some tonerider “love song” pickups. The difference was noticeable…..very noticeable! The Roswell’s weren’t horrible, but they weren’t great either. The Toneriders?…they took my guitar from a “pretty good guitar”, to a “special kinda great guitar”….but that’s just my experience.
Nice Tele pickup comparison. The Roswells seem a little compressed and brighter with less definition than the Toneriders. On RUclipss audio compression the Roswells sounds nice and chimey. I expect the Toneriders would be a more versatile pup but I'm not sure the slight improvement of this swap is worth the trouble considering the guitar value.
WOW, I was prepared to LOVE the Tone Riders, but have to say, to MY taste, the Roswells sounded much more clear, articulate and “tele-like”, and I just cancelled my order on Tone Riders. WOW, THANK YOU! (and I DO believe the TRs are great P/Us, just made me appreciate the Roswells)
Seems like the Tone Riders have more of a 'compressed' sound, which does give a nice vintagey quality to them. Other than that, the tone is great on both sets.
I thought the Toneriders sounded a little smoother and clearer. Not a lot in it but I wonder if the Roswells might be a bit tiring on the ear after a while.
Honestly, I'm shocked that so many thought or think they're the same. While in the first two comparisons the difference was slighter, but still clear that the Tone Rider had better clarity and articulation. But it was really the third comparison that was glaringly apparent. Truly superior in that test. (No, I don't work for tonerider, and in fact, don't own any. This said, if I needed a set, and those 2 were the only choices; it'd be TR).
I am not commenting on tone now. I bought a roswell paf humbucker set and both pickups had loose polepiece screws after trying to adjust them. They are now sliding up and down through the pickup with only a tiny bit of pressure. Applied some wax on the bottom of the baseplate to keep them in place but I am definately going to replace them as soon as I can. Never had any issues with toneriders so far. Great affordable Pickups ...
The Roswell neck pickup is a ceramic, according to the specs. It''s a CR pickup which stands for a ceramic. It measures around 5.75 k which is very low, which then you would expect it to be very bright - but that may be an advantage in the telecaster neck pickup. Since it's a ceramic pickup we have no way of knowing how powerful it is since you can charge them at any amount. It is possible they adjusted the magnet to make it sound as close as possible to a Fender sound, with a pronounced peak. The bridge pickup of the Roswell is ALNICO, at 6.6k, perhaps a bit lighter than you would expect in comparison to a Fender, but I think here it would be very difficult to tell the difference. The Toneriders are similar to Fender, perhaps a smidgeon heavier.
TEA F CR stands for Telecaster Alnico model F Chrome. This is an Alnico V (so alloy of aluminium, nickel, iron and cobalt) I have got the same HB but LPB instead of black. TEA B means Telecaster Alnico Bridge. Also Alnico V You were right about the resistance though. The output is Vintage and the neck one inductance is 2,25 Henry. Tone Rider Vintage "Plus" has a plus of output with regards to standard Vintage Pups.. This is because the resistance is greater 7,4 and the inductance is smaller 1,9 Henry. The TEA B is quite similar in resistance 6,6 K vs 6,8 K of Tone Rider. That explains why the bridge sound is more similar in both tested pup's. The greater resistance in Neck makes the pickup more agressive which is translated in bigger treble response to most of ears. That can be by times confused with clarity. But push the disto in the amp and you will be force to roll off the treble a bit. Tone Rider pickups are great. They are also manufactured in Chine BTW. Such as the Roswell ones. I know Tone Rider claims that the materials they use are of high quality. Can you notice the difference in tone depending on the laker used to isolate the cupper wire between turns? I cannot. The plastic or the fabric cover does not make any difference electrically or magnetically speaking. Not the connection wires neither. Alnico V is Alnico V in both. The back plate are cupper in both. So, bottom line, the resistance made the audible difference.
Virtually no difference between the sets. i 'm starting to believe Glenn Fricker of Spectre Studios when he says it's all about the speakers. As long as the pickups aren't microphonic trash, there's a lot EQ and a good amp speaker can do for you.
Interesting stuff John, as usual. 😁 I think that Teles and Tele pickups are fairly easy to copy - Leo kept it simple, bless him. However, I bought an HB CST-24T (Roswells) a while back and thought that the pickups lacked any kind of character. I replaced both with ToneRiders (Rocksong and Alnico III) and the difference was night and day. The CST is a fantastic guitar. Two Roswell humbuckers for sale if anyone is interested. 😁
Yeah from demos at least the Roswell Tele pickups sound much bettet than their humbuckers. I got some AC2s for my Epiphone, might leave the Harley Benton TE62 stock for now.
They sound a little bit different. Now, is it worth spending half the price of the guitar on those pick ups for that difference in sound? I wouldn't do it, but it is not my guitar nor my money. Just my opinion based on a RUclips test listened from a 150 euros phone. :-)
I agree it was minimal - I have the toneriders in a parts build and am happy with them in that guitar. My favourite tele pick ups are Fender 51 no caster Alnico 3 they have a nice balance and are not too ice picky or hot either. Tone rider do a version of these Hot for Tele A3 which may be a good option as well.
Tone Riders sound a tiny bit better to me, but the tone character remained the same. Probably the difference can be compensated with slight tweak of tone controls on the amp or simple eq. So for clean, unless you get inspired by playing Tone Riders and knowing that you put some special mojo that will separate your guitar from the rest (valid reason for a change ), not quite worth the time and money. However, it will be interested to compare noise levels with some of the drives (ie. some tube screamer or similar, just to push guitar to over drive). Here there might be a difference in favour of Tone Riders - or not. It'd be interesting to compare that aspect to.
Had to listen twice but once you brought the neck pickup in the Tone Riders had the edge in definition. The resultant standard pickups are pretty good though.
Very, very small differences through my headphones. Perhaps the Toneriders are a little more scooped sounding? I own a pair of the Tonerider Vintage Plus pickups and love their sound - they meant a massive upgrade to the sound of my Squier Affinity, but in that guitar, the stock pickups were a cheaper kind of ceramic. In this case, the Roswells sounded so good that I don't think I'd bother switching.
I felt the Roswells had a little more harshness in the higher frequencies in a way that sounded Ice Picky or Shrill with that particular style of overdrive compared to the Toneriders. Not necessarily a bad thing, since I imagine Roswells would work great under High Gain with dark sounding amps, or that one could compensate by rolling down the tone knob (meaning Toneriders would have limits in how they distort compared to Roswells). Both are great either way, just depends on what kind of sound you're looking to get from your pickups
Agreed that there's not a lot between them but the ToneRiders do have a slight tendency to be brighter, but not massively. I'll keep my Rosewells in my HB TE62DB.
i have the same harley benton te62db in red along with a te52 and wouldnt change pickups in either of them. they are both different but both very good. i also have a tonerider hot classic bridge pickup that i put in a kit guitar along with a artist bullbucker in the neck. very good but i cant say that they sound any better that the roswells.
Just sometimes changeimg the pick ups makes little difference, this seems to be one of them. I have found Roswell to have an harsh edge in other models.
Which one's are better, or right? Depends what you're looking for. The Tone-Benders were, to my ears, more full, less sibilant and trebly. Or, less Tele-like, if you prefer. The Roswells were more trebly and Tele-like, although, to my ears, they were a little too ice-pick trebly for my ears (like a Strat bridge pickup with no tone control), so my vote is for the Tone-Benders. Again, it's what the person who buys the guitar is looking for in a T-type sound.
I'm not too surprised by the results, John. I've fitted Toneriders to a couple of my guitars, both 'budget' models and they definitely improved the tones, but I recently fitted a Vanson Alnico II 'bucker in the bridge position of my Peavey EXP model and the difference was astounding. I guess we are not comparing apples and pears in this instance as the Peavey pickup has ceramic magnets and the dc resistance was 13.5k., way to much for my liking and sounded really brittle to my ears, whereas the Vanson is really musical and with the coil tap covers all styles really well. I guess the main point is, as you have pointed out on numerous occasions, you really don't have to automatically head to the 'big boys' for quality pickups. I wish I' was aware of this years ago when I shelled out $140 for a set of Dimarzio 36th Anniversary PAF's to convert my Strat to a Big Apple variant, I like them but frankly, I'm just as happy with the Vanson so I know where I'm off next time....... BTW, when I contacted them, I found the Vanson customer service was excellent too.............. and no, I'm not being paid for saying so😉
I have to admit John, I have a three Harley Benton's, all with Roswell pickups, and I am very happy with them BUT, after hearing this comparison video, I am now seriously considering investing in some Tone Rider's for my TE52. The Tone Rider's were far nicer in tone and clarity, to my ears, and I am now curious enough to want to see if they make any difference to my HB T style guitar. Well done ya bugger, you've just convinced me to spend some more money I haven't got .... on me birthday too 🤣😂 👍 lol
The difference is so subtle that if I did not know you changed the PUs I would not know it. Clearly the Roswel PUs are just as good/bad as the Tonerider PUs.
Hi John, to my ears there really wasn't a difference between the two pairs of pickups. However when you did the cowboy chord strumming I definitely thought the Tone Riders had the better sound.
I have the Toneriders and the Roswell’s in two Teles and the neck in the Roswell’s is fatter and has more depth than the Toneriders, there is a video on RUclips where a guy blindfolded thinks the Harley Benton is his Fender Custom Shop!!!
Although these clips are more difficult to judge through RUclips, to my ears the TR's sounded more dynamic and clearer than the RW's. Not a huge difference though...
Tone rider are very good, they were used in the early classic vibe guitars, the custom shop fat 50's and 60's I find are very good, I don't mind paying the price for those as the sound is so good.
The Roswells sound a bit distorted, the Toneriders sound cleaner and more balanced. I have a set of Tonerider Alnico II classics in one of my Les Pauls and love them
@user-lv7ph7hs7l Good choice, I absolutely love them. Just bought a set of Alnico V Birminghams for my other les paul, they are also amazing, if you want a bit more kick 😉
Tone Riders are more balanced, with a creamy sound but The Roswell seams to have more dynamic. Interesting how Roswell are good for the Price. Especially for a budget guitar to upgrade for a low budget.
Too little of a difference to pay for. As I have the same guitar all upgrade It needed was disconnecting neck pickup from tone pot. That just made neck a touch brighter and gave it a little bit more output plus ability to darken up just a bridge pickup. All that with changing one wire and 5 minutes of soldering. Thing that tele really needs is new tuners, original have too shallow holes on pegs.
I replaced a set of Roswells, exactly like those, in the same model Harley Benton with Tonerider Alnico II Blues. There was a very noticeable difference, just as you found with your Fazely.
I'm relatively new to modding guitars, just experimenting really. After my success of with Tonerider Alnico II Blues in my HB Tele, I swaped out the pups on my ESP Strat. The pups on the ESP strat were clean and clear but lacked oomph. I always needed to turn up the volume. The Toneriders I installed were Alnico V. My guitar sounds more aggressive and vibant but I would have liked to hear alnico II.
hello there!! on this guitar, onestly, for what I HEARD HERE... I think is better roswell...tht's incredibile...cos tonerider, here, are closed more than roswell
Hardly a difference between the 2 to be honest. The Roswell’s sound great. Toneriders have a bit more in terms of clarity and dynamics but not by much. I do like toneriders. I have a set of tele hot classics in a Squier tele but if I was getting that sound out of a Roswell’s I’d be happy with that.
There is a noticeable difference between the sets. I would definitely go with the Toneriders. They sounds more natural relaxed, more clarity better balance and with better dynamics. My listening was through my Beyerdymamic DT 990 Pro headphones.
Nice review John. I think to my ears the tonerider pickups sound a little bit better but it's not a night and day difference.
admittedly, I'm getting on a bit and the old lug holes aren't as keen as they once were, but they sounded exactly the same to me - I also can't really tell the difference between my squier and Mex Teles and my mate's yank one. As I get longer in the tooth, I increasingly believe that pretty much everything I ever believed about guitars is total BS
John, another great demo from an expert. I had to play this video back a few times to try and hear a difference. Maybe the Tone Riders sound very, very slightly mellower, but it is so barely noticeable that I could be imagining this. It might be due to both sets being closely priced with only £8 difference between the £56 Roswell set (from DV247) and the slightly more expensive Tone Riders set costing £64. To my ears there is very little sonic difference to justify the extra £8 or 12.5% outlay for the Tone Riders, so I'm sticking with the cheaper Roswell option in my Harley Benton TE-62DB LH LPB. Your mileage may vary.
To compare seriously, you have to consider the money and personally, I found that the Roswell pickups are a very good level compared to the Tone Rider (more prestigious and especially to add to the price of the instrument).
In concert you will not hear any difference.... the snobbery of guitarists with the perfect ear (virtuosos in general...)has always amused me....
Congratulations to Roswell for his microphones.... and the rest is also a matter of taste.
Thank you for this very informative experience.
And sutout, that the Paganini of the six strings continue to enrich the Majors for our greatest happiness....!
Toneriders are dirt cheap, friend.
I couldn't really tell the difference until you went to the neck pickup the Tone Riders sounded less boomy I thought
I sometimes wonder if an investment in a decent EQ pedal is actually better, given that you can play with the mids, high and low frequencies, perhaps changing the sound to ones liking, as for me there wasnt that much in it, like 10 to 15 % difference at best.actualy thought the Roswell sounded better in a couple of clips.
I’m an amateur but I still think having an EQ on my board is really powerful. I got an Empress ParaEQ, and I like it quite a bit. it is so “studio” like that I can tweek my sound in subtle ways that are very similar to the differences between my pick sets.
Wow! That was close -too close for comfort. I have the stock Roswell pickups in my TE-52, which I would never want to swap. They have everything I want and so much more.
The Toneriders have something extra in terms of clarity and quality, to my ears 👍
Um, I can speak on this as I swapped out Roswell pickups from my Harley Benton Fusion 2, and dropped in some tonerider “love song” pickups. The difference was noticeable…..very noticeable! The Roswell’s weren’t horrible, but they weren’t great either. The Toneriders?…they took my guitar from a “pretty good guitar”, to a “special kinda great guitar”….but that’s just my experience.
Nice Tele pickup comparison. The Roswells seem a little compressed and brighter with less definition than the Toneriders. On RUclipss audio compression the Roswells sounds nice and chimey. I expect the Toneriders would be a more versatile pup but I'm not sure the slight improvement of this swap is worth the trouble considering the guitar value.
WOW, I was prepared to LOVE the Tone Riders, but have to say, to MY taste, the Roswells sounded much more clear, articulate and “tele-like”, and I just cancelled my order on Tone Riders. WOW, THANK YOU! (and I DO believe the TRs are great P/Us, just made me appreciate the Roswells)
Seems like the Tone Riders have more of a 'compressed' sound, which does give a nice vintagey quality to them. Other than that, the tone is great on both sets.
I thought the Toneriders sounded a little smoother and clearer. Not a lot in it but I wonder if the Roswells might be a bit tiring on the ear after a while.
Both sets sounded great, not really anything between them !! 😄
Interesting - useful to me, I'm thinking of trying some Toneriders, a long shot, but perhaps you could compare with a Warman set, thanks John.
Honestly, I'm shocked that so many thought or think they're the same. While in the first two comparisons the difference was slighter, but still clear that the Tone Rider had better clarity and articulation. But it was really the third comparison that was glaringly apparent. Truly superior in that test. (No, I don't work for tonerider, and in fact, don't own any. This said, if I needed a set, and those 2 were the only choices; it'd be TR).
Brilliant video. I've a set of Tonerider Classic Blues, great in my Strat!
Delighted you said perhaps little better tonality. Yes!!
I am not commenting on tone now.
I bought a roswell paf humbucker set and both pickups had loose polepiece screws after trying to adjust them. They are now sliding up and down through the pickup with only a tiny bit of pressure. Applied some wax on the bottom of the baseplate to keep them in place but I am definately going to replace them as soon as I can. Never had any issues with toneriders so far. Great affordable Pickups ...
The thing is any differences there are could be reduced further with tweaking pickup height and knob twiddling.
and amps have tone knobs and gain that make far more difference than changing p/ups ever can
Knob twiddling can affect the eye's gentleman!!😂🤘
The Roswell neck pickup is a ceramic, according to the specs. It''s a CR pickup which stands for a ceramic. It measures around 5.75 k which is very low, which then you would expect it to be very bright - but that may be an advantage in the telecaster neck pickup. Since it's a ceramic pickup we have no way of knowing how powerful it is since you can charge them at any amount. It is possible they adjusted the magnet to make it sound as close as possible to a Fender sound, with a pronounced peak.
The bridge pickup of the Roswell is ALNICO, at 6.6k, perhaps a bit lighter than you would expect in comparison to a Fender, but I think here it would be very difficult to tell the difference.
The Toneriders are similar to Fender, perhaps a smidgeon heavier.
TEA F CR stands for Telecaster Alnico model F Chrome. This is an Alnico V (so alloy of aluminium, nickel, iron and cobalt) I have got the same HB but LPB instead of black. TEA B means Telecaster Alnico Bridge. Also Alnico V You were right about the resistance though. The output is Vintage and the neck one inductance is 2,25 Henry. Tone Rider Vintage "Plus" has a plus of output with regards to standard Vintage Pups.. This is because the resistance is greater 7,4 and the inductance is smaller 1,9 Henry. The TEA B is quite similar in resistance 6,6 K vs 6,8 K of Tone Rider. That explains why the bridge sound is more similar in both tested pup's. The greater resistance in Neck makes the pickup more agressive which is translated in bigger treble response to most of ears. That can be by times confused with clarity. But push the disto in the amp and you will be force to roll off the treble a bit. Tone Rider pickups are great. They are also manufactured in Chine BTW. Such as the Roswell ones. I know Tone Rider claims that the materials they use are of high quality. Can you notice the difference in tone depending on the laker used to isolate the cupper wire between turns? I cannot. The plastic or the fabric cover does not make any difference electrically or magnetically speaking. Not the connection wires neither. Alnico V is Alnico V in both. The back plate are cupper in both. So, bottom line, the resistance made the audible difference.
@@thetruewillmakeyoufree8234
Interesting. I couldn't quite make out what they were doing.
In truth if we weren't told which pups were being played, I think there would considerable differences of opinions to which ones sounded best.
A comparison between the Roswells and Tonerider anico blues ii would be interesting.
I didn’t really pick up much difference in the bridge but neck sounded cleaner and a tad less muddy. Both sounded good to me though.
Virtually no difference between the sets. i 'm starting to believe Glenn Fricker of Spectre Studios when he says it's all about the speakers. As long as the pickups aren't microphonic trash, there's a lot EQ and a good amp speaker can do for you.
The Tonerider pickups have a bit extra in all areas - I have their Hot Classics in my Fenix Tele copy and they're great
Interesting stuff John, as usual. 😁 I think that Teles and Tele pickups are fairly easy to copy - Leo kept it simple, bless him. However, I bought an HB CST-24T (Roswells) a while back and thought that the pickups lacked any kind of character. I replaced both with ToneRiders (Rocksong and Alnico III) and the difference was night and day. The CST is a fantastic guitar. Two Roswell humbuckers for sale if anyone is interested. 😁
Yeah from demos at least the Roswell Tele pickups sound much bettet than their humbuckers. I got some AC2s for my Epiphone, might leave the Harley Benton TE62 stock for now.
They sound a little bit different. Now, is it worth spending half the price of the guitar on those pick ups for that difference in sound? I wouldn't do it, but it is not my guitar nor my money. Just my opinion based on a RUclips test listened from a 150 euros phone. :-)
I agree it was minimal - I have the toneriders in a parts build and am happy with them in that guitar. My favourite tele pick ups are Fender 51 no caster Alnico 3 they have a nice balance and are not too ice picky or hot either. Tone rider do a version of these Hot for Tele A3 which may be a good option as well.
Tone Riders sound a tiny bit better to me, but the tone character remained the same. Probably the difference can be compensated with slight tweak of tone controls on the amp or simple eq. So for clean, unless you get inspired by playing Tone Riders and knowing that you put some special mojo that will separate your guitar from the rest (valid reason for a change ), not quite worth the time and money. However, it will be interested to compare noise levels with some of the drives (ie. some tube screamer or similar, just to push guitar to over drive). Here there might be a difference in favour of Tone Riders - or not. It'd be interesting to compare that aspect to.
Had to listen twice but once you brought the neck pickup in the Tone Riders had the edge in definition. The resultant standard pickups are pretty good though.
Hi Nice vídeo. The rosewell are really noisless? Many thanks
Nah... Just regular single coils
@ Many thanks. They’re very close to Tone Rideres, a little bit more muddy. But nice video
Very, very small differences through my headphones. Perhaps the Toneriders are a little more scooped sounding?
I own a pair of the Tonerider Vintage Plus pickups and love their sound - they meant a massive upgrade to the sound of my Squier Affinity, but in that guitar, the stock pickups were a cheaper kind of ceramic. In this case, the Roswells sounded so good that I don't think I'd bother switching.
You should try a set of the Tonerider Hot Classics. Amazing pickups for T-styles.
Yep, a little more clarity in the Tone Rider Pick ups was my thinking as well.
Hmm probably gonna leave my TE62 stock for now. You have the Alnico 2 Blues perhaps? Those where my pick.
I felt the Roswells had a little more harshness in the higher frequencies in a way that sounded Ice Picky or Shrill with that particular style of overdrive compared to the Toneriders. Not necessarily a bad thing, since I imagine Roswells would work great under High Gain with dark sounding amps, or that one could compensate by rolling down the tone knob (meaning Toneriders would have limits in how they distort compared to Roswells). Both are great either way, just depends on what kind of sound you're looking to get from your pickups
If anything the 2nd lot sound a little bit muffled compared to others but they both sound shithot, some lovely playing as always sir.
I agree wholeheartedly… 👍
Agreed that there's not a lot between them but the ToneRiders do have a slight tendency to be brighter, but not massively. I'll keep my Rosewells in my HB TE62DB.
i have the same harley benton te62db in red along with a te52 and wouldnt change pickups in either of them. they are both different but both very good.
i also have a tonerider hot classic bridge pickup that i put in a kit guitar along with a artist bullbucker in the neck. very good but i cant say that they sound any better that the roswells.
The tonerider bridge pickup was my preference, but I liked the brighter scooped sound of the Roswell neck pickup.
The Tonerider seemed slightly (slightly) to have a clearer sound. However that is personal choice if you want it clearer or muddier
Maybe putting a nocaster set would be more interesting as a step up , albeit not alnico v
I heard real differeces only in the third run (crunch) where toneriders were a bit more defined. A bit.
Just sometimes changeimg the pick ups makes little difference, this seems to be one of them. I have found Roswell to have an harsh edge in other models.
Which one's are better, or right? Depends what you're looking for. The Tone-Benders were, to my ears, more full, less sibilant and trebly. Or, less Tele-like, if you prefer. The Roswells were more trebly and Tele-like, although, to my ears, they were a little too ice-pick trebly for my ears (like a Strat bridge pickup with no tone control), so my vote is for the Tone-Benders. Again, it's what the person who buys the guitar is looking for in a T-type sound.
I'm not too surprised by the results, John. I've fitted Toneriders to a couple of my guitars, both 'budget' models and they definitely improved the tones, but I recently fitted a Vanson Alnico II 'bucker in the bridge position of my Peavey EXP model and the difference was astounding. I guess we are not comparing apples and pears in this instance as the Peavey pickup has ceramic magnets and the dc resistance was 13.5k., way to much for my liking and sounded really brittle to my ears, whereas the Vanson is really musical and with the coil tap covers all styles really well. I guess the main point is, as you have pointed out on numerous occasions, you really don't have to automatically head to the 'big boys' for quality pickups. I wish I' was aware of this years ago when I shelled out $140 for a set of Dimarzio 36th Anniversary PAF's to convert my Strat to a Big Apple variant, I like them but frankly, I'm just as happy with the Vanson so I know where I'm off next time.......
BTW, when I contacted them, I found the Vanson customer service was excellent too.............. and no, I'm not being paid for saying so😉
I’ve heard good things about both brands.. Roawell, and Tonerider.. and I’ve more experience of Vanson pickups, which I like..
Hi John.
I have to admit John, I have a three Harley Benton's, all with Roswell pickups, and I am very happy with them BUT, after hearing this comparison video, I am now seriously considering investing in some Tone Rider's for my TE52. The Tone Rider's were far nicer in tone and clarity, to my ears, and I am now curious enough to want to see if they make any difference to my HB T style guitar. Well done ya bugger, you've just convinced me to spend some more money I haven't got .... on me birthday too 🤣😂 👍 lol
To my ears They are booth great but my preference goes for the Tone Riders a bit more warmer and a bit more clarity
The roswell pickups sound brighter which fits the Tele a bit more in my opinion but I do like the warmth of the tone rider's
Play that funky music er... Redcar boy!! Great stuff John!
I didn't expect a lot of difference, however, I did hear a some difference.
Which pick ups would you recommend for blues/rock playing? Something that would drastically improve the sound?
The stock Roswells are OK, but if you want more power out of this guitar, try Artec hot rail style pickups
Very similar but the tone riders are less woolly to my ears I think I wouldn't bother changing! 👍😃
The difference is so subtle that if I did not know you changed the PUs I would not know it. Clearly the Roswel PUs are just as good/bad as the Tonerider PUs.
Hi John, to my ears there really wasn't a difference between the two pairs of pickups. However when you did the cowboy chord strumming I definitely thought the Tone Riders had the better sound.
They sound exactly the same to me lol
The Tonerider pickups sounds a little better. The difference is not drastic. The Toneriders have a more defined bottom end and more clarity.
Thank you for this!
Great comparison. Subtle difference, maybe slightly in favor of the TR, but probably not worth the $.
The Roswell pickups sounded a bit harsh to my ears. In staying that I put a set of Toneriders into a MIM strat and heard no difference at all.
Tone Riders sound clearer than the Roswells to my ears.
It is so subjective. I like both honestly...
Tone Riders had less bottom end, sounded more Brittle. Roswell sounded better, more rounded.
Hello, I am planning to purchase Tonerider Octane. Is it able to do Coil Split?
It's 4 conductor wiring, so it seems it can be split 👍
I have the Toneriders and the Roswell’s in two Teles and the neck in the Roswell’s is fatter and has more depth than the Toneriders, there is a video on RUclips where a guy blindfolded thinks the Harley Benton is his Fender Custom Shop!!!
Slight differences between them, but not enough to matter. I'd be happy with either set. If I had a T-style guitar. Which I don't. Yet.
Tone riders have the edge here for me, slightly more clarity and definition
really good comparison. Tone Riders are great
Blind test yeah that’s the good question lol,,roswell is well saved money for something you probably can’t hear
I’m building a strat with p90 tonerider twice as much as. The Wilkinson
I think the Toneriders did have a bit more ‘body’ - but whether that would really matter for a bit of live pub rock………
Although these clips are more difficult to judge through RUclips, to my ears the TR's sounded more dynamic and clearer than the RW's. Not a huge difference though...
Tone rider are very good, they were used in the early classic vibe guitars, the custom shop fat 50's and 60's I find are very good, I don't mind paying the price for those as the sound is so good.
Tone riders sound fuller. And maybe more defined notes.TheRoswell's sound a bit thin but Tele twangy.
The Roswells sound a bit distorted, the Toneriders sound cleaner and more balanced. I have a set of Tonerider Alnico II classics in one of my Les Pauls and love them
That's the ones I want for an old Epiphone V, it needs some PAFs.
@user-lv7ph7hs7l Good choice, I absolutely love them. Just bought a set of Alnico V Birminghams for my other les paul, they are also amazing, if you want a bit more kick 😉
Had to listen with headphones, but there is a difference. Tonerider sounds a little brighter/clearer. Indeed the Roswells sound good enough though
Tone Riders are more balanced, with a creamy sound but The Roswell seams to have more dynamic. Interesting how Roswell are good for the Price. Especially for a budget guitar to upgrade for a low budget.
Too little of a difference to pay for. As I have the same guitar all upgrade It needed was disconnecting neck pickup from tone pot. That just made neck a touch brighter and gave it a little bit more output plus ability to darken up just a bridge pickup. All that with changing one wire and 5 minutes of soldering. Thing that tele really needs is new tuners, original have too shallow holes on pegs.
I replaced a set of Roswells, exactly like those, in the same model Harley Benton with Tonerider Alnico II Blues. There was a very noticeable difference, just as you found with your Fazely.
I'm relatively new to modding guitars, just experimenting really. After my success of with Tonerider Alnico II Blues in my HB Tele, I swaped out the pups on my ESP Strat. The pups on the ESP strat were clean and clear but lacked oomph. I always needed to turn up the volume. The Toneriders I installed were Alnico V. My guitar sounds more aggressive and vibant but I would have liked to hear alnico II.
Roswells sound notably brighter, just on the edge of getting harsh imo. Personally prefer that
I actually enjoyed the video
ToneRiders for the Victory!
I thought there was a massive difference on the last example the tone riders were way clearer
The Toneriders were a little brighter but it was not a huge difference to my ears.
I think the Tone Riders have more 'depth' whatever that means.
Not much between them though Tone rider did seem a little sharper,
hello there!!
on this guitar, onestly, for what I HEARD HERE... I think is better roswell...tht's incredibile...cos tonerider, here, are closed more than roswell
I thought the Toneriders had more articulation.
Hardly a difference between the 2 to be honest. The Roswell’s sound great. Toneriders have a bit more in terms of clarity and dynamics but not by much. I do like toneriders. I have a set of tele hot classics in a Squier tele but if I was getting that sound out of a Roswell’s I’d be happy with that.
There is a noticeable difference between the sets. I would definitely go with the Toneriders. They sounds more natural relaxed, more clarity better balance and with better dynamics. My listening was through my Beyerdymamic DT 990 Pro headphones.
John,
Wasn’t worth changing the Roswell pickups to the Tone Rider imo.👍
Pequenas diferenças que no final não muda nada, muito bons os dois sets!
Similar. Perhaps a sweeter clean
To me the tone riders sounded a bit warmer which is more my taste but there’s not a lot in it, I’d be happy with both 👍
Tone Rider ever time for me! But not a huge difference.
The Tone Riders are a bit les muddy on the neck position ....
I'd keep the Rosswells they sound alright to my non audiophile ears...
Not a huge difference imo but the tonerider edge it