I've been a Seymour Duncan guy most of my life, but I never had much reason to be. So one day, after doing some surgery on an old BC Rich, I saw a small stamp on the back of the bridge pickup. Designed by DiMarzio. That piqued my interest as I was currently building a guitar to use with my death metal music project and my Seymour Duncan Distortions and Invaders just didn't have the punch and response that I needed for less djenty efforts.So I gave this a try. The guitar in question was a single humbucker strat-like with a fixed bridge. Since this pup was designed with the sharp, crispness of an active pup and I had a guitar equipped with EMG 81/85 combo, I figured I could give it a really good go. Plus the price wasn't as prohibitive as the more boutiquey brands.I bought it, installed it, and was at first dissapointed with it. In comparison with an Active pup like the emg 81, the DActivator is loud, aggressive, and prone to bottoming out in a muddy heap if you even dare scoop your mids.But after some thorough work putting it thru its paces, I'm now building a Tele-style four-pot-harness metal monster. The neck and bridge pups will both be DActivators. Why?Match this pup up with a rectified tube amp, leave the mids at 5 or 6, treble at 7, bass at 5 and you're golden. Crank the gain and you are on possession of a tight, crisp, aggressive, articulated snarl that I've not heard from the other pups I have lying around the music room.They'll be the exclusively used pickups on my bands next album. These are amazing tone for the money.