Ceramic Magnet Vs Alnico 5

Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides.

Ceramic magnet vs alnico 5.

These magnets are softer than ceramic magnets and provide a weaker magnetic field. 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. Alnico is nice and warm and great for blues.

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. Whereas ceramic is used in metal as it sounds tight loud and cool. Because the ceramic magnet isn t introducing compression the result is a cleaner sound in comparison to alnico. 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.

There are different numbers associated with alnico magnets such as alnico 2 or alnico 5. So we often hear. Alnico 5 has more magnetic material and less ferric material resulting in slightly lower inductance. Alnico 2 is a little weaker resulting in a slightly warmer tone.

A lot of people automatically say that alnico is superior to ceramic in pickups. The alnico 2 tends to sound just a little more organic woody and. By some players the ceramic magnets are given a bad reputation when compared to. Ceramic magnets have a lower inductance since they are not metallic.

Alnico tends to produce a very musical pickup in most. That lower inductance means a little less in the way of lower midrange tone and again more brightness. 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. 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.

Ceramic magnets are made of ceramic surprise. You often hear that the sound of a pickup is dominated by the choice of magnet used in its construction. The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response.