Nobody disputes the ‘Holy Grail’ status of PAFs, but their relative scarcity means very few of us will ever get the chance to try the real thing. The danger with ‘Holy Grails’ is the way we project our hopes and dreams onto them. This partly explains why those lucky few who do experience vintage PAFs don’t always get what they expected.
Classic recordings are of limited value because any guitar tone that has been processed through random microphones, preamps, equalisers and so forth can only tell us so much. Let’s begin by describing what vintage PAF pickups actually sound like so you can judge whether the PAF replicas in your guitar are as accurate as the manufacturer claims.
Bloom & Bust
Apparently, some vintage PAFs sound terrible, but the ones for sale on Reverb always sound “amazing”. Jokes aside, any informed discussion of PAF tone has to acknowledge a range of characteristics. However, certain traits are shared by most PAFs and when you’re trying to authenticate them, knowing what to listen for
