[BridgerHumbucker]

Because of arthritis, I play extremely light strings (36-28-20-13-10 & 7) tuned to E flat. Also I play 24 inch scale guitars ( mostly Jaguars) I recently had put in a Gibson Dirty Fingers in the lead and a Dimarzio Super 2 in the neck and compared to an identical Jaguar with a  Duncan Designed JB in the lead and a Jazz in the neck, it played a lot 'stiffer'
( both guitars have had the frets leveled and set up the same )
My question is, do High Output Pickups make a guitar play harder
( especial one set up with my extremely light gauge strings?)
Also the pickups were originally set up as close to the strings as possible, though I've lowered them now, I can't tell if I'm fooling myself that they are playing easier or not.
Any and all thoughts on the matter are appreciated.

[darkbluemurder]

Not as a general matter. Higher output tends to make guitars play rather easier than harder since there is more compression in the amp from the higher output. So it is either the guitar itself that plays stiffly or a bad pickup / guitar match that results in certain frequencies being suppressed, giving the appearance that the guitar plays stiffer even though the guitar has not been altered physically. I just had that with a Cabronita partscaster set up with a TV Jones Classic Plus in the bridge. That guitar felt tough to play until I changed the bridge pickup to a TV Jones Supertron bridge.

Good luck,
Stephan

[DarthPhineas]

Because of arthritis, I play extremely light strings (36-28-20-13-10 & 7) tuned to E flat. Also I play 24 inch scale guitars ( mostly Jaguars) I recently had put in a Gibson Dirty Fingers in the lead and a Dimarzio Super 2 in the neck and compared to an identical Jaguar with a  Duncan Designed JB in the lead and a Jazz in the neck, it played a lot 'stiffer'
( both guitars have had the frets leveled and set up the same )
My question is, do High Output Pickups make a guitar play harder
( especial one set up with my extremely light gauge strings?)
Also the pickups were originally set up as close to the strings as possible, though I've lowered them now, I can't tell if I'm fooling myself that they are playing easier or not.
Any and all thoughts on the matter are appreciated.

It might depend on how you define “harder” and “easier”.

[BridgerHumbucker]

Because of arthritis, I play extremely light strings (36-28-20-13-10 & 7) tuned to E flat. Also I play 24 inch scale guitars ( mostly Jaguars) I recently had put in a Gibson Dirty Fingers in the lead and a Dimarzio Super 2 in the neck and compared to an identical Jaguar with a  Duncan Designed JB in the lead and a Jazz in the neck, it played a lot 'stiffer'
( both guitars have had the frets leveled and set up the same )
My question is, do High Output Pickups make a guitar play harder
( especial one set up with my extremely light gauge strings?)
Also the pickups were originally set up as close to the strings as possible, though I've lowered them now, I can't tell if I'm fooling myself that they are playing easier or not.
Any and all thoughts on the matter are appreciated.

It might depend on how you define “harder” and “easier”.

If I could reiterate, when I say " play stiffer" I mean does the magnetic pull of the Higher output pickups pull on the strings, with the guitar unplugged. The 2 guitars in question (The guitar that plays harder has a Gibson Dirty Fingers in the lead and a Dimarzio Super 2 in the neck and compared to an identical Jaguar with a Seymour Duncan JB in the lead and a Jazz in the neck) are being A/B'd Unplugged, any discernible pull is just going by feel, not what I'm hearing through an amp.

[Audiowonderland]

The extremely small amount of magnetic pull won't have the remotest impact on the strings. If one guitar feels stiffer to bend you need to be looking at fret materials, string gauge, scale length etcv