While I have guitars with both actives and passives, in a certain fashion, I feel as if the high gain amplifier market has evolved in such a way that it has outgrown the necessity for active pickups. When the EMG 81 hit the market it was a really effective and efficient means of adding gain, attack, tightness and brightness to the amplifiers of that late 80s to early 90s period. But as the amp manufacturers began to recognize these trends and respond to the tastes of hard rock and metal players the amps inherent high gain capabilities began to get tighter and more aggressive ( to the point of overkill in my opinion ). When you add in a high output active pickup to many of these amps, not only can it be aggregous, but you are often sacrificing too much character, warmth and well...just plain old tone in the process. While a Marshall 800 can really benefit from the output and frequency bump of an active pickup, many modern high gain amps seem to sound better ( to my ears ) with a medium output passive as the front end of the amp is doing all the heavy lifting in regard to gain, tightness and attack. Then there are amplifiers that seem to take well to both...such as the Diezel VH4. Just some thoughts.
