I just had the K&K Pure Western Mini installed in my 40 year-old Gallagher. I tried it out with a Baggs PADI last night and was underwhelmed. I spoke with Dieter(one of the Ks of K&K) today and he said that the Baggs is not a good fit with the K&K because the impedance in the PADI is set up for under-saddle pickups. Naturally the K&K pres are a better fit. He also mentioned their new tube(2 tubes) pre which will be out in 2-3 weeks. It will be pricey($600) but will offer some detail and high-end sparkle not available in the lower $ tube pres currently on the market. I am eager to hear this!

Until you get a preamp, have you tried the K & K direct? The one in my C10 sounds pretty good without anything but a guitar cord. However, I am looking forward to trying the new preamp, when it is available.

Hey there Randy. Yes I have, and it sounds pretty weak. It is boosted significantly with the Baggs PADI, but there is some unwelcome low-end boom. I am trying to be patient until that new tube K&K is available. I have a gig tonight, so I will Just get through it with the Baggs.

Hi Bill. What are you playing through? I've got K&K's on four guitars and I've played them all though various setups, inlcuding straight into the board/pa/amp with nothing but a guitar cable. One thing I can say for sure, is none of them sounded "weak."

Can you be a bit more specific? By "weak" do you mean "not loud?" Or do you mean "plenty loud, but weak in tone?"

We'll need more info to help at all...

I have noticed that the PADI does NOT do a very good job of controlling boom using their "notch" filter. It's not really a notch. It's wide Q and only cuts 8 DB! Have you tried the phase setting? toggle it on and off and see if it makes a difference?

Hope you get through the gig, OK. Let us know how it goes!

David

quote:

Originally posted by bill browder:
I just had the K&K Pure Western Mini installed in my 40 year-old Gallagher. I tried it out with a Baggs PADI last night and was underwhelmed. I spoke with Dieter(one of the Ks of K&K) today and he said that the Baggs is not a good fit with the K&K because the impedance in the PADI is set up for under-saddle pickups. Naturally the K&K pres are a better fit. He also mentioned their new tube(2 tubes) pre which will be out in 2-3 weeks. It will be pricey($600) but will offer some detail and high-end sparkle not available in the lower $ tube pres currently on the market. I am eager to hear this!

The Baggs PADI has an input impedance of 10 MegOhm. With that spec, it is designed to handle most acoustic guitar pickups. The K&K mini is somewhat of an exception because its design works best with a 1 MegOhm input impedance in the first gain stage or DI. Absent other certain circuitry at that point, plugging a K&K mini into a preamp with a 10 MegOhm input impedance will lower the -3dB bass corner frequency, which is a fancy way of saying that the resulting signal will have more bass response than intended.

The K&K preamps have a 1 MegOhm input impedance, so they match nicely to the K&K mini, but do not match as well with most other pickups.

A simple solution, which allows use of a K&K mini with a Baggs PADI, is to solder a 1.21 MegOhm resistor between the hot and ground at one end of a TS guitar cable, and then use that cable between your guitar and the PADI. WIth this modification (about a 20 cent part), the K&K mini signal sees a 1 MegOhm input impedance and is loaded properly to function as designed.

You can also modify the PADI itself by replacing the 10 MegOhm resistor with a 1 MegOhm resistor, but then the unit won't work as well with most other pickups. Better to mod a cable and keep the PADI stock.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sdelsolray,

I am not proficient at things technical, so a K&K preamp is in my near-future. Without a preamp the signal is weak. It doesn't sound bad, just not what I was expecting from the enthusiastic reviews. I will hold judgment till I hear it with the right preamp. Dieter told me the same thing about the 1 MegOhm input level working best. Thanks for the help everyone.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bill browder,

Bill:
I spent much of last summer fooling with impedance modification on my Rane AP13 and a PADI and the K&K XLR preamp. The PADI produced a very nice musical sound, and when run through a Fishman Loudbox I seriously doubt you could do much better with a pickup. Personally, I think it was because the Loudbox happened to give it the perfect EQ. The K&K didn't sound as good thru that amp. The other two guys (salesfolk) at Maple Street Guitars thought the same.
The total system you're using is very important, and with a Collings--the only instrument I've amplified with the passive mini western setup--what I found was that once you had the basic 1 megohm resistance, you still had a problem with too bright of a midrange, unless you have adequate mid range EQ. The Rane has EQ sliders at 40 hz, 100hz, 200hz, 630 hz, 1.6k,4k and 10k, with 12dB cut/boost. I don't remember the bandwidth, but it wasn't wide enough to tame the brightness of a D2H to my taste WHEN listening through my 8" woofer /3.5" midrange stereo monitor speakers. When playing through a 12" PA loudspeaker, however, it sounded incredible, (though with the usual subtle soundboard resonance that comes with a SBT type pickup)and I confess to being proud of the envy of by buddies who had lesser systems, even though they were better players!
The K&K has an especially wide midrange EQ band and that's one of its strong points. If I had to use either the Baggs or the K&K with no effects or other gear, straight into a system, I personally would pick the K&K, but the best would be to try both.
I tried to find a system that would be best no matter where I plugged it in, but I learned that matching parts to produce the best result isn't quite as easy as I thought. Still, I found something that worked great in most of the venues I play and exceptional in others.
PS. I've never heard of "weak" for the K&K unless it was stuck on improperly or had some odd electronic mismatch. I delivers avery robust signal.

The K&K really does sound best with a K&K Preamp. The difference is subtle but noticeable. More so as volume increases. Better balance with the bass, much more woody tone, and the K&K Preamp does a perferct job at EQ-ing the midrange. All four of my guitars take the same EQ from my K&K Pure XLR. Bass and Treble at 12:00, Mids at 9:00. That's it! Easy and sounds great.

Thanks for the input everyone.