Upgrading My PRS SE Soapbar II

Описание: 00:00 - Intro
00:55 - The Pickups
02:16 - The Circuit
03:31 - Conclusions
04:48 - Audio Samples
Upgrading My PRS SE Soapbar II
When I released the On the Bench video for the PRS SE Soapbar II, I said the about the pickups:
Let’s talk about the pickups. At lower volumes the pickups are clean and clear. From mid volume and up you start to increasingly get the “P-90” growl. I would not expect pickups of this quality in the SE line or price point. They do however have the typical P-90 hum in pickup selector switch positions 1 (bridge only) and 3 (neck only). The middle position (2) hum cancelling kicks in and mostly knocks out the hum.
This is my favorite P90 guitar. It is lightweight. It is beautiful. It is a joy to play. The only shortcoming is I think I can do better with the tone and also eliminate the hum. With the tone I would like more warmth in the neck position and middle position.
For the hum elimination I picked up a set of open box Seymour Duncan Hot P-90 Silencer Soapbar Guitar Pickup Set. New these go for $278 for a set and I got a really great deal for a used set.
I was doing my research and came upon a forum where a luthier replied to someone who asked if anyone had experience with the Seymour Duncan Silencer Pickups. He replied to the person that they were basically just humbuckers and that they will not sound like P-90s at all. This had me worried. I looked at a picture of the internals of the Silencer Pickups and they are indeed small three coil humbuckers. My hope is the middle coil is a P-90 and the person that made this comment was making the statement based upon conjecture and not actually experience with the pickups.
Here is what Seymour Duncan says about these pickups:
The tone doctors at Seymour Duncan have engineered these P-90s with an entirely noiseless design, injecting them with an exceptional pair of tonal selections to choose from: Hot and Vintage. Hot P-90 Silencer Soapbars growl with a high-output fierceness that’s tailor-made for aggressive playing in hard rock and heavier genres.
I purchased these pickups and am not affiliated with or sponsored by Seymour Duncan.
I have really become enamored with a P90 circuit where instead of two 500k pots it has a 500k volume pot and a 250k tone pot instead. Both pots share a .022 uF Capacitor. I tried this circuit in a dual P90 pickup Fender Mustang and have been in hooked with the tone slash warmth it I was able to get out of that guitar ever since. In my opinion it is my best sounding P-90 guitar.
With my PRS SE Soapbar II I will install this wiring circuit and the Seymour Duncan Hot P-90 Silencer Soapbars and hopefully I will be able to get what I want as a result.
Installing this setup in my guitar went easy. The only issue I ran into is pickup covers. I could not find a cream set of pickup covers that would fit these pickups. At first I did not like the black covered pickups in this guitar but it is quickly growing on me and I think I will keep them.
Key Strengths (What I found):

Noiseless Performance: I am happy to find that I found the Silencer pickups do actually produce authentic P90 sound but without the hum, buzz, and noise that typically comes with single-coil pickups. I would say the match for the P90 sound and tone is about 90%. The noiselessness is 100%. I do not hear a damn bit of hum or noise out of these pickups at all.

The bridge pickup is very "Hot" with a tone that I would describe as "fierce," "mean and full," and "fat and cutting."
The neck and middle position are very usable positions with the warmth I was looking for.
Despite the high output, the pickups are articulate well and are very clear. The notes remain distinct, even under high gain.
Easy Installation: They are marketed as "drop-in replacements" for most standard P90 routs and can confirm that the installation is straightforward.
Value for dollar?
That is a tough one. They do exactly what thye promise. $278 for a set of P-90s is a lot to pay. You just have to figure out for yourself how valuable it is to remove the unwanted noise.