New Toasters

[1OUfan]

As you can probably tell, I'm a "newbie" and I have alot of questions. What is the difference between the newer "Toasters" and the ones on the vintage Rics from say the 1960's?
Thanks--
Bob

[Scastles]

The ohms. The vintage toasters are scatterwounds with 7.4 ohms, approx. I think the hotter toasters found on some models, like the V series for example, are around 12.

[lennon211]

As you can probably tell, I'm a "newbie" and I have alot of questions. What is the difference between the newer "Toasters" and the ones on the vintage Rics from say the 1960's?
Thanks--
Bob

The newer toasters, the ones on guitars built since mid-'99 are rated at the same 7.4k resistance and are scatter-wound like the old ones from the '60's. From the mid-80's through '99, 12k toasters were used that were not scatter wound. Basically the easiest way to tell the difference is that the hot (12k) toasters have Phillips head screws in the corners and the vintage spec toasters use slot-head screws in the corners.

[johnallg]

The ones from the 60s were wound from the 5k range to the almost 6k+ range. Also the length of the magnet pole pieces were shorter. Also, and this is a guess as I believe alnico5 was not around back in the 60s, the material in the magnets were different - alnico3?? Anyone? Bueller?

[soundmasterg]

Alnico 5 has been around a long time. Almost all alnico speaker designs have historically used it, so how far does that go back? Certainly to the early 50's anyway. I would hazard a guess that Rickenbacker, like Gibson and Fender and others didn't spec out the exact magnet type, only that it had to be a certain dimension and to be a magnet. You'll find with PAF's that they had A2, A3, A4, and A5 and all sound different. Moreover the magnet can be fully charged or degaussed and that changes the sound too. A degaussed A5 has some similarities to the other, but there isn't much of a way to tell it is A5 without having the metal analyzed chemically aside from fully charging it and seing how high it goes as A5 goes higher than most others. I like A3 in bridge humbuckers a lot, and suspect I would like it in a RIC toaster in the bridge too, but haven't tried it yet.

Greg