Difference Between Alnico 5 And Ceramic

What is the difference between alnico and ceramic magnets.

Difference between alnico 5 and ceramic.

What amount of energy is required to magnetize each of the magnet materials. You see ceramic is easier to come by than alnico making it a cheaper magnet to make. Ceramic magnets are made from ferrites often iron oxides. By some players the ceramic magnets are given a bad reputation when compared to alnico which is probably due to their association with cheaper instruments.

Alnico magnets are made of an alloy of aluminum nickel and cobalt. Ceramic pickups have more bite wich helps get a crunchy sound even if can t afford a real classy tube amp. Magnets with a knee in their second quadrant normal curve such as alnico 5 or true ceramic 5 can see experience significant demagnetization. It s like the difference between the stones and the beatles imho.

The result is a slightly hotter sounding pickup with more treble response. To fully saturate a magnet it must be exposed to a magnetizing field of sufficient amplitude for a time long enough to. Because the ceramic magnet isn t introducing compression the result is a cleaner sound in comparison to alnico. Some folks might liken the difference between alnico and ceramic speakers to the difference between tube and solid state amplifiers where one compresses smoothly and the other gives all it has and then clips hard.