The Steel Guitar Forum

Can someone measure teh resistance of their XR16 with and ohm meter for me please. Also, are Wild pickups legit as in are they the real BL?

Bill Lawrence lost the right to use his name and continued doing business under the Wilde name. His daughter is running the business now.
https://www.wildepickups.com/

OK so Wilde pickups are legit.

Can anyone measure the resistance of their XR16 pickups. Thanks

Quentin, I have two XR-16s

1st is 28.4k ohms

2nd is 29.7k ohms

I have read that XR-16s ohms are usually in the range of 25k to 30k ohms.

Bill Lawrence reportedly did not think the dc resistance value was all that important. He preferred to use the inductance value of a pickup. XR-16s are reportedly 16 henry or henries

I have one of those in a D10 Carter that measures 31K Ω. That's measured on the guitar at the jack.

What are the characteristics of the XR16?

John LeMaster wrote:Quentin, I have two XR-16s

1st is 28.4k ohms

2nd is 29.7k ohms

I have read that XR-16s ohms are usually in the range of 25k to 30k ohms.

Bill Lawrence reportedly did not think the dc resistance value was all that important. He preferred to use the inductance value of a pickup. XR-16s are reportedly 16 henry or henries

That makes sense since inductance has an impact and is frequency dependant where as resistance stays the same nonmatter the freq. Do you have an lcr meter by Cchance that you could measure the inductance?

My friend bought a carter with 2 BL pickups and wants to know which BL they are without lifting them. I said good chance either 710 or xr16. From what people are saying that 710 are around 30k. Both 710 and xr16 are pretty close to the same purely resistive load so this is not a good way to tell. I should email Becky and ask here than I would get an accurate answer

Roger Crawford wrote:What are the characteristics of the XR16?

hot like a 710 but darker or warmer sounding.

Jerry Overstreet wrote:I have one of those in a D10 Carter that measures 31K Ω. That's measured on the guitar at the jack.

thanks!

I've seen a lot of posts about this. It seems ohm values guys are posting for 710s are all over the place. Either there's that much variance or people are confusing them with XR16s.

FWIW, the other BL pickup on this Carter is one of the older 710s with the odd bobbin like this and it measures just over 23K Ω on the guitar at the jack.




I have absolutely no idea how one would measure henries, inductance nor what type of equipment is necessary to do that.

I believe Wayne Dahl had XR16's in his Carter that he was using in this video.

Solo starts at 3:00 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeE2T6NhVks

Quentin Hickey wrote:
My friend bought a carter with 2 BL pickups and wants to know which BL they are without lifting them. I said good chance either 710 or xr16.....

710 & XR-16 have two rows of pole pieces and are visually indisinguishable and need a meter to tell them apart (they are sometimes marked on the underside. Not always).

910 has a single row of pole pieces.

Aside from an old twin blade pickup (605, 705, 805) that's pretty much it for BL.

Mine's 30.7 Quintin

THanks Dale!


I just measured my 710s and they are 18.8k ohms.

I agree with the previous poster, people are confused and spreading misinformation on which pickups are suposed have xxxx resistance.
I just read an old post where a guy said that 710 should have over 30k and 705 should have under 20 ohms .....

Totally wrong!

That really makes sense if you guys think about it with the xr16 resistance, becuase inductave impedance is directly realted with resistance and inductance. the xr16 sounds warmer (darker) than the 710 so therefore higher resistance(and impdenace)

I don't know about the recent 705 issue pickups but under 20K ohms could be about right for the original chrome housed BL705. They listed those at 18-21K ohms. The ones I had measured somewhere around 19K ohms IIRC.

Here's a chart posted by the late John Fabian concerning the electrical properties of the original 05 series.

John Fabian wrote:The first number of the x05 series indicated different impedances and resistances running from lowest to the highest. lower numbers tend to be brighter while higher numbers tend to be mellower.

705 - approximately 18K-21K Ohms, 15H inductance
805 - approximately 26K Ohms, 21H inductance
605 - approximately 15K Ohms, 11H inductance
505 - approximately 12K Ohms, 7.5H inductance

This numbering system does not hold true for the modern Lawrence pickups (710, 716, 910, etc.) The first number indicates construction and the second two numbers indicate impedance in Henrys.

I don't have any numbers for the recent issue 705s which are from a different mfg.

John Fabian wrote:This numbering system does not hold true for the modern Lawrence pickups (710, 716, 910, etc.) The first number indicates construction and the second two numbers indicate impedance in Henrys.

I dunno. As I recall, Bill said his 710 was designed for pot pedals, and the 910 was designed for active volume pedals?

Anyhow, all other things being equal, I don't think you'd hear a difference if a pickup was 29k, or 31k. Any resistance measurement differences of less than 10% can probably be ignored.

Roger Crawford wrote:What are the characteristics of the XR16?

I had a BL710 before, and now a BL XR-16. On my JCH the low strings are a bit warmer and smoother, the high strings sound silkier, less harsh. I wouldn't say that it's darker, just different. The XR-16 is a fine pickup which I will keep on using, but everything depends on the guitar that you put it on. On a Sho-Bud the BL710 might be a better choice, on a Zum or an Emmons one may like an other pickup better.

Donny Hinson wrote:
I dunno. As I recall, Bill said his 710 was designed for pot pedals, and the 910 was designed for active volume pedals?

Anyhow, all other things being equal, I don't think you'd hear a difference if a pickup was 29k, or 31k. Any resistance measurement differences of less than 10% can probably be ignored.

The BL910 did very well with a pot pedal too. I liked it a lot in my JCH, more than the BL710, but the XR-16 seems to be the best match for my JCH. Wasn't the BL910 tested by Hal Rugg in his ZUM?