I'm a big fan of noiseless single-coil pickups so I was happy to try the DiMarzio Area series pickups which are latest generation noiseless pickups and have been getting good reviews. I received five pickups for review: two Area '58s, an Area '61 a Virtual Vintage '54 Pro and an Area T Telecaster Bridge pickup.

Construction
Overall the build quality is fairly good, with neat windings and flatwork and with the excess potting wax cleaned off. The magnets are nicely machined and bevelled on top and the pickup covers are snug but easily removed and replaced.

Not everything is perfect though. Firstly the wires to the pickups are not soldered to the traditional eyelets, but rather connected straight into the coils and are simply looped once through a hole in the base for primitive strain relief. This means the wires cannot be replaced and if they were pulled out, they might pull out of the coil, destroying the pickup. The wires from the pickups themselves are very thin. They seem to be the same thin wire used inside the shielded wire DiMarzio uses for most of their humbuckers, but without the extra wires, jacket or shielding.

A minor point is that the model label is a cheap looking piece of paper stuck to the bottom of the pickup. This could cause problems if the label is damaged or missing and you are trying to identify a pickup or trying to figure out which pickup is which in a set.

Installation
Installation and wiring in a Strat was easy. The pickups fitted nicely into a pickguard without being too tight or too loose and the mounting hardware is included. The screw quality was decent, but the plating could be better. The wires stripped, tinned and soldered easily without the insulation shrinking back or melting.

I did run into a problem fitting the pickups to a rear routed body without a pickguard. The pickups didn't fit in the pickup cavities because of the "strain relief" loops of wire adding slightly to the base width. A quick notch in the base to recess the wires worked well to get around this.

In use
The pair of '58s in neck and middle with the '61 in the bridge gave me the classic, percussive and glassy Strat tone, but with the modern twist of a slightly hotter bridge pickup. Dynamics aplenty in all switch positions and plenty quack in switch positions two and four. The slightly hotter '61 tames the harsh "icepick" common in bridge position and gives a slightly hotter lead tone, but not so hot that it loses the "quack" in position two. The middle pickup alone is very good and the '58 in the neck is wonderful - warm and full, but articulate. This was the winning combo for me, and a set of three '58s would obviously work well for a brighter, more vintage correct tone in all switch positions.

A '58 in the neck, a '61 in the middle and the Virtual Vintage '54 in the bridge. The neck position stayed the same, but the '61 wasn't as gratifying in the middle position as it was in the bridge, and tended to make the middle three switch positions a bit lacklustre. The '54 in the bridge worked well as an even hotter pickup to kick the amp into a fatter bluesier drive. Overall this set was very balanced output wise and fairly flexible, ramping up in gain gradually from position five to position one, but was not as tonally satisfying. Replacing the '61 with the '58 was much more satisfying, although position two did lose a lot of quack.

Finally I tried the Area T bridge pickup in my Tele/Strat hybrid and found an excellent Tele - very bright and punchy without being overly thin or harsh. I couldn't resist popping in the '58s in the neck and middle and they are a perfect match - Tele tones from bridge and position three (which is wired for neck and bridge pickups) and Strat from the rest. Now the guitar does snap, quack and pop!

Conclusion
Of course for many, the main attraction of the DiMarzio Area series pickups is that they are noiseless - and they are all very quiet indeed. As single-coils they are totally convincing, mostly quite toneful, and do not lose brightness or dynamics as some other designs do. The hotter models do trade off some tone in exchange for power, but the same is true of real single-coils. There are a few flaws in the construction and I sincerely hope DiMarzio reconsider the lack of eyelets and shielded wire in future revisions.