The H1 neck pup is excellent with fine note detail and excellent crunch along with excellent sustain char with nice slow even note fade out. However the h1 bridge pickup I got has horrible sustain that at best is half as long as the neck pickup. The bridge pickups note fade out is very fast. Sound qaulity while it sounds is goodbut the lousy sustain char makes it nonuseable to me. I have contacted emg this evening to ask if its a defective pickup or if this unusual diff in sustain between the h1 bridge and neck is normal. If emg says its normal, I'll be returning the pickup and reinstalling the bridge pup I had in the guitar before. If emg says its defective pup will I'll have to decide wether to return the bridge pickup for refund or exchange.

The neck pickup is a keeper though based on its excellent sustain, excellent note detail with chords and excellent crunch factor. Low scores in the review are due to lousy performance of the bridge pickup I received for the set.

I got the emg h1 set to replace the g400's hot rod humbuckers. There is very little noise. I love the crunch and clarity that the bridge gives. Used with a metal muff and a fender clean channel, I really like my setup. The h1's keep their tone even when I throw a lot of distortion on them (others may get drowned out).

This is not a metal pickup. I have a set in my ESP with an afterburner. The tone isn't there until I pull on the afterburner. It's crunchy in the bridge but it breaks up. Sounds good clean but thats about it. Still an EMG, so the quality is there.

You can play Judas Priest with it and get away with some Pantera but it's really not a metal pickup, depends on the amp of course. Best for playing ZZ top or AC/DC. Most versatile of any pickups I own very significant differences when tapped and adjusting polepeices. POLEPEICES REALLY HELP SHAPE TONE.

The EMG H1 pickup has a very crisp and clear sound on clear channel and a moderately bright crunch on distortion but there is very little hum or buzzing. If you want a good crunchy tone these pickups are for you. I also suggest using 500k volume pots for these pickups if you want an extra 3db gain boost.