Ceramic Magnet Vs Alnico 5

Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most.

Ceramic magnet vs alnico 5.

Ceramic magnets are made of ceramic surprise. So we often hear. These magnets are softer than ceramic magnets and provide a weaker magnetic field. Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides.

Due to the strong magnetic pull the alnico viii is a nice middle ground between the punch and clarity from a ceramic pickup and the sweet organic sound of an alnico which brings us to ceramic. Because the ceramic magnet isn t introducing compression the result is a cleaner sound in comparison to alnico. However when the magnet geometry is ideal or the magnet is used with iron steel elements in a magnetic circuit then the. Alnico is nice and warm and great for blues.

You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction. There are different numbers associated with alnico magnets such as alnico 2 or alnico 5. Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico. The alnico 2 tends to sound just a little more organic woody and.

Alnico has a higher inductance due to the iron content technically ferrite magnets are made from iron oxide so to generalize alnico will increase the inductance a bit and sound a bit warmer than a ceramic in the same pickup. Alnico 2 is a little weaker resulting in a slightly warmer tone. Alnico 5 has more magnetic material and less ferric material resulting in slightly lower inductance. Ceramic magnets have a lower inductance since they are not metallic.

Alnico 8 has a lower residual induction but a higher coercive force. A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. The weaker magnetic field created by alnico magnets is said to give them a warmer smoother quality than a ceramic magnet but at the cost of reduced gain. But it all depends on the pickup.

By some players the ceramic magnets are given a bad reputation when compared to. Some folks might liken the difference between alnico and ceramic speakers to the difference between tube and solid state amplifiers where one compresses smoothly and the other gives all it has and then clips hard. This immediately suggests that alnico 8 will have a larger magnetic field compared to alnico 5 when magnets are short compared to their pole area.