READ THE JANUARY 2015
REVIEW BY DAVE HUNTER
HD59-HDPG COMBO REPLICA SET

The HD PAF replicas are becoming more well known despite my low production of few pickups every year. Dave Hunter is a man who owns and plays real vintage PAF's, as do a large number of my other customers, and knows what they do and what they sound like. Dave's review reflects many of the same statements I hear over and over from customers all the time. If you missed the issue I have scanned them at legible size for you to read.

READ THE FRONT PIECE CLICK HERE.
READ THE HD PAF REVIEW CLICK HERE

VINTAGE LAB HD PAF REPRODUCTIONS-THE FINAL WORD

Stephens Design was the first independent small pickup maker to seriously undertake the problem of recreating vintage PAF humbuckers, 16 years ago. When I started this work no one had any interest in the subject and very little work had ever been done on the solution.

Unlike almost every other pickup maker out there, I don't buy a pile of offshore pickup parts that everyone uses, wind 'em all up an call it a "PAF." There is little in those parts that are true to what you find in vintage examples of old Gibson humbuckers. That road has been beat into the ground by others and you find little tonal difference in those products. Many hand wind these pickups, which is a huge mistake. The signature tone of a real PAF relies on a "signature" turns per layer formula that gives a distinctive resonant peak that no hand wound pickup can match, period. You don't need a vintage winding machine to replicate that pattern; I built my own machine that can copy and type of winding pattern perfectly with impeccible results.

I own 2 real PAFs and have repaired many others, and with the help of many wonderful people in the steel industry in the area of magnetic alloys, magnet wire, and vintage parts dealers and historic Gibson experts who consult for other companies, I spent literally thousands of hours of personal research, experimentation, and lengthy dissection of real PAFs, noting every oddity every dimensional measurement, unwound many coils one turn at a time, got many lab results of chemistries and microphotography of the crystal structure of every alloy used in the magnetic circuit. And other things I can't talk about... My results speak for themselves.
I was not trying to "get that sound" by using parts that have no relation to real vintage PAFs, from modern bulk parts sellers, I WANTED TO RECREATE EVERY TINY DETAIL I FOUND, HISTORICALLY ACCURATE, TO NAIL EXACTLY WHAT THOSE VINTAGE TECHNOLOGIES DID IN AN ELECTRIC GUITAR, AND LEARNED TO MAKE THOSE PARTS MYSELF. The only thing I wanted to be known as a copycat for was copying the actual actifacts; I call this "Tonal Archaeology." I put my heart and soul, and many many hours into these products and you can be sure you get what you pay for.

REVERSE ENGINEERING IS THE TRUE KEY TO AUTHENTIC PAF TONES

Here we see a microphotograph of a specific steel alloy; the forms of steel are endless, I have reproduced the correct forms of PAF steels, through endless research with the aid of a magnetic alloys specialist. Also shown are real PAF magnetic circuit parts, compared to modern sloppy commercial parts and the parts I make and plate in my own shop. No detail has been overlooked, these parts are an important piece of the PAF "puzzle."