Ceramic Magnet Vs Alnico 5

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.

Ceramic magnet vs alnico 5. A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. Ceramic magnets are made of ceramic surprise. But it all depends on the pickup. Magnetically speaking ceramic magnets produce a stronger field than alnico.

However when the magnet geometry is ideal or the magnet is used with iron steel elements in a magnetic circuit then the. So we often hear. 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. Ceramic magnets have a lower inductance since they are not metallic.

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 is nice and warm and great for blues. Alnico 5 has more magnetic material and less ferric material resulting in slightly lower inductance. By some players the ceramic magnets are given a bad reputation when compared to.

Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides. 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. Alnico 2 is a little weaker resulting in a slightly warmer tone. You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction.

Alnico 8 has a lower residual induction but a higher coercive force. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool. The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. Because the ceramic magnet isn t introducing compression the result is a cleaner sound in comparison to alnico.

That lower inductance means a little less in the way of lower midrange tone and again more brightness. Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most. The alnico 2 tends to sound just a little more organic woody and.