Vintage horseshoe PU’s only meassure 1.5 Ohm
Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2025 5:51 pm
I just bought a 1954 Rickenbacker DW16 steel guitar. It’s in exellent condition but unfortunately it does not sound as warm as my 1954 SW8…
They are both equally load but the DW16 is a lot brighter.
I measured the pickups and where the SW8 reads 7.5Ohm, both the pickups on the DW16 only reads 1.5Ohm.
Since they both read the same I guess that someone maybe ordered it to that specification.
I guess that it has a lot windings than the regular old Horseshoe pickups.
A guitar repair guy told me that a recharging of the magnets won’t change the Ohm value so now I am wondering if I should both pickups rewound.to the right specification.
Have any of you guys ran into that problem? And what would you recommend I should do?
Thanks,
Peter
They are both equally load but the DW16 is a lot brighter.
I measured the pickups and where the SW8 reads 7.5Ohm, both the pickups on the DW16 only reads 1.5Ohm.
Since they both read the same I guess that someone maybe ordered it to that specification.
I guess that it has a lot windings than the regular old Horseshoe pickups.
A guitar repair guy told me that a recharging of the magnets won’t change the Ohm value so now I am wondering if I should both pickups rewound.to the right specification.
Have any of you guys ran into that problem? And what would you recommend I should do?
Thanks,
Peter