US Patent 5668520 Kinman Hx PUp

[Ears]

More fun stuff from US patent office.
I use them so thought I'd find out what's inside a Kinman PUp.
There's a heap of other patents on pickups too.

[Tubetwang]

Interesting!

Thanks for sharing...

Twang

[drz400]

Looks like a DiMarzio to me and they seem to have some kind of war going on.
Apparently he is staying out of distribution in the US

[Noel Grassy]

Thanks ears, this is slaking my GAS for his stuff.

Yeah, I've trying to score his Tele bridge p'up with no sucess. When his
Humbux come up for sale they're $500~$600+!

[jjman]

I have what I think is the Dimarzio. It came in my used Strat in the bridge. I alway wondered why the bridge position had no hum unitl I removed it to put in a set of TX specials.

FF some years and I was looking for more output from the neck position on my '78 Tele. I had the dimarzio laying around so I removed the outer portion of the shield to get it to fit under the metal cover of the tele neck postition. Then waxed it in there. It just fit but was still not loud enough to match the loud stock bridge. I didn't know the bottom coil was a dummy at 1st. I think the dimarzio has no poles in the bottom?

What would be the purpose of having aluminum poles in the bottom?

[Ears]

Looks like a DiMarzio to me and they seem to have some kind of war going on.
Apparently he is staying out of distribution in the US

Here is the DiMarzio patent Kinman refers to. There might well be more noiseless DiMarzio patents but I haven't checked them out yet.

[Andy Le Blanc]

the two patents are so close...... its like haveing the right jack in a game of
cribbage.... Ive alway liked the thought that it was all the flawed inconsistances the made "the tone" ....most "noiseless" pickups seem to
sound castrated.....sterile.... to me...

[Ears]

the two patents are so close...... its like haveing the right jack in a game of
cribbage.... Ive alway liked the thought that it was all the flawed inconsistances the made "the tone" ....most "noiseless" pickups seem to
sound castrated.....sterile.... to me...

But the difference is claimed to be significant i.e that Kinman's design magnetically isolates the two coils. Just that tiny step further, you could imagine the folks at DiMarzio feeling rather peeved.

[Andy Le Blanc]

I think a patent claim is based upon how "distinct" the inovation is
one extra bit here or there can be all the difference in the world.....
the basic principle in the seth lover humbucker was nothing new.....
but it was the realization of the application that probablly drove the patent
application.... a fender strat might have been a differnt beast if its design did not
face patent restrictions by a pre-exisisting claim(s)....

[drz400]

the two patents are so close...... its like haveing the right jack in a game of
cribbage.... Ive alway liked the thought that it was all the flawed inconsistances the made "the tone" ....most "noiseless" pickups seem to
sound castrated.....sterile.... to me...

But the difference is claimed to be significant i.e that Kinman's design magnetically isolates the two coils. Just that tiny step further, you could imagine the folks at DiMarzio feeling rather peeved.

DiMarzio covers the U shield as well as the imbalanced coils, had a nice chat with Blucher at DiMarzio.
Their patent must be stronger or they have more money since Kinman doesnt have distribution in the states I believe. I actually like the DiMarzio VV better anyway. Tried 2 sets of Kinmans, an expensive experiment... they were duller and thinner sounding, The Kinmans do "look " better though I actually liked the very early Kinmans better than the new offering, I think he might have changed his design in regards to the imbalanced coils. I prefer normal single coils with the noise though, they just have something extra like an airy open quality non of the noiseless pickups have.

[Andy Le Blanc]

its the noise floor...... the universe just isnt right without it.....