Yeah, it seemed strange to me as well, but thats what the tech told me via email.. He said that some demagnetization happens very rarely.. The AT-1 is an interesting pickup for sure. In series I did like it quite a lot. It has a very smooth high end with a midrange rather similar to the Chopper, which is also a pickup I like very much (in a strat). The AT-1 also has a nice, big, low end that stays tight.. I don't know how they did that - maybe the air technology has some part in that.. That said, it really is a different kind of pickup, at least different from what I'm used to. I've used Dimarzio single coils for many years, mainly Virtual Vintage and Area series, but in years past I had usually used Duncans for humbuckers. The air tech definitely makes the pickup behave differently.. I'm wondering if the bad sounding split has do with the fact that the PRS is not a "true" split, but rather a tap. There is a cap in the wiring that brings in a little bit of the grounded coil when tapped. This is pretty cool in that it gives it slightly more output in single coil mode, while offering a bit less 60 cycle hum... Not that this notion is logical, but I wonder if my AT-1 is truly defective, or if it just didn't like being tapped for some reason.. The Vintage Bass taps beautifully, and is only 8.6k DC resistance - and I know that is not a reliable criteria for judging output, but it's the only info that PRS gives.. But, you'd think that the AT-1, being around 16K - and "aired", which might lower the "actual" output a little, to maybe feeling or responding to something that is around 14K (just a guess..), that still would not explain why the AT-1 sounded so weak compared to the VB unless the AT-1 is defective... Just thinking out loud here. I honestly don't know..
