Fender Pure Vintage 64Tele Pickup

i have a fender custom tele from Japan that i bought new when I was 18. Its a guitar i have learned to appreciate as I bought USA guitars and found that they were not necessarily better. The one weak spot though, was the pickups. My original ones are unmarked but I expect they are stock MIJ. Now, the upgrade is not a night and day change. the originals are good, but the pure vintage give me a bit more of a rounded, fuller tone. Maybe a 20% improvement, but enough to make it worthwhile. I was worried about getting something too hot so opted for these. I dont think i got a bargain. they are relatively expensive but I like them very much. I used to spend all my time in the middle position, but the neck pickup on these mean I spend most of my time there.

These pickups are very good. The build quality is exceptional.
The pickups are wax potted and the wires are “vintage” cloth covered.
The sound is robust and and the output level is very good, not too weak at all.
They are a bit bright but they are well balanced between the neck and the bridge.
You might have to roll back the tone a bit in order to get a more “default” sound. Also you can adjust this by lowering the pickup height.
But this additional treble is nice and useful. Is not harsh or piercing.
I compared these to the Lindy Fralin Vintage Hot set (aka Stock Tele).
I expected a huge difference. I was very wrong.
The Fralins are not so trebly, they have a more default eq to them.
But the extra brightness of the Fenders is kind of addictive. You might miss it when it is not there.
Of course this depends on your preference and the rest of your gear..
The Fralins also have a slightly better note separation when playing chords.
I suppose this is because the Fenders have a slightly softer attack.
I would be equally happy with either of them.
All in all these pickups are a great option at a great price.
They are up there with the more expensive hand-made alternatives.

I put these into a Stewmac Tele kit. The original kit pickups where quite usable, but in particular the neck was quite dull.

The improvement in sound was in particular noticable on the neck pickup, which had a lot more clarity than the original ones. The bridge was also a bit clearer, but not that much of a difference to my ears.

An issue that came up during installation was that the screws somehow enlarged the holes in the baseplate holding the pickup and eventually became loose after some rounds of height adjustments. This was addressed to the Thomann support, who responded very quickly with useful advice (it appears that this is a weakness of the legacy pickup design).

In the mid 90's I picked up a battered '72 Tele cheaply,mainly intact but missing its pickups.Back then the only spares from Fender were the 52 reissues which I installed but always felt they were a bit lifeless...esp compared to my other Tele,a '69 which has pickups that i would describe as resonant and open,really alive....so when I saw these were available I decided to try them and they are much more open and livelier than the '52's...much more like the original 69 pickups.Really nicely put together too,up with any "boutique" pickup..Fender are really on top of their quality control here...well worth the money!