I just remembered these two recordings done with a Strat with VNs with 1M tones and 500K volume. You can hear the shortcomings of the pickups with these because they are laid-back and clean. Notice how the pups get a little broken up and less defined on chords than a good Strat should. If these were done with my box-stock ASe, they would have been much better. The VN's are cool with some drive but can't do the clean thing. They have a compressed sound to them and seem to lack the dynamic range and complexity a really great Strat should have. My stockers in my ASe sound so much better. I'll live with little noise problem.

Following were recorded with VN equipped Strat into a DRRI.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/song...songID=4082057

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/song...songID=3744521