Cavalier Nashville Lion and Lion King Tele Pickups

Cavalier Nashville Lion and Lion King pickups.

I bought a set of Cavalier pickups to install into my Squier Classic Vibe 50s Tele. I selected the Nashville Lion for the bridge position as it appeared to sit in the middle of all offerings. I picked the Lion King because it seemed like the most popular neck mode.

Squier stock CV Tele pickups.

The DC resistances of the Nashville Lion and Lion King were 8.14k and 8.13k respectively. The stock bridge and neck pickups measured 7.30k and 7.61k respectively. At the similar typical Tele pickup heights, the Cavalier pickups are less hot and not as harsh sounding. At the same time, the Cavalier pickups are fuller sounding. It was a bit difficult to get the outputs to be the same with the difference in frequency response. 1/8th turns on the pickup mounting screws brought the output from a little low to a little to high. The differences in frequency response are most apparent in the middle position, with the Squier set sounding more hi-fi and the Cavalier set sounding more colored.

My video comparison.

The Squier pickups are not unique to the model. Older iterations of the Squier Classic Vibe 50s guitars in the 2010s had different pickups than the 60s models. However, these stock pickups have the same sticker codes as the pickups that I pulled out of my Squier Classic Vibe Baritone Tele Custom, a guitar with more 60s appointments.

Prior to the pickup swap, I shielded the Tele’s control cavity. This reduced a significant amount of noise that  be I was experiencing before. There are still angles where the hum becomes annoying, but there is a wider range of directions I can face without the noise becoming too much of a problem.