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I put a Baggs HiFi pup in a guitar on Wednesday for a funeral performance on Thursday and I was impressed with the tonality of the pick-up.

As you may know from my past posts I'm a fan of Baggs stuff and have recommended the Anthem, Lyric and Element for 15 years now or so and I've installed maybe a couple hundred of them.

The Lyric can take a good sounding guitar and accurately reproduce it lushness and all. I have a Lyric in one of my personal, Heshtone L-OOs. The Lyric is also excellent in say a Lowden where the split saddles limits pup choices. I believe George recommends the Lyric for his creations too.

The Anthem with a proper Baggs preamp is my gold standard for versatility and tone, excellent system but pricy especially with the preamp.

The Element has been entertaining people for 15 years or so now and if a UST, under saddle transducer with all of their quirks and quacks is right for you it's a great choice.

The HiFi was new to me and this was the first one I have ever handled and installed one. Price point is about $200 IIRC. Once it was all in and tucked away and powered up I liked the tone very much. When I compare it to a K&K mini that has three transducers installed the Baggs was more lush, more overtones and in some ways a bit more natural to my ears. The K&K is $75 less than the HiFi so they are not in the same ball park pricing wise. Here are some more impressions of the HiFi:

Likes:

1). Well made, excellent company (Baggs)
2). Innovative and useful installation jig that I actually did use when I never use manufacturer installation jigs in the past.
3). Very complete everything you need for a pro install AND Baggs even recommends that you take it to a pro.
4). Excellent tone that I would rate an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Don't likes:

1). It has to be wired so that wire retainers are either stuck to the top or the top bracing, I hate anything touching my tops....
2). The two wires coming from the transducers run very close to the pin holes and could be hit by a pin.
3). This is the biggie for me in terms of what I don't like. Stick-on transducers are problematic and they do fall off. We have seen them fall off with K&K and we won't use self stick even if it's quality 3M stuff. Baggs wants these two transducers installed with the provided self stick which I did as directed but I don't like it.... On K&K we use a quality, medium CA and pretreat the bridge plate with accelerator (pro tip you may want to note...) and it works great. My routine is to lightly sand the plate. Wipe the plate clean with a clean paper towel. Apply accelerator to a paper towel and then wipe the plate with that paper towel. This permits me to position and stick the transducers with a 1/8" puddle of medium CA to the plate and they grab in about 2 seconds or so. Helps in not gluing my finger in the guitar too which can be awkward trying to drive with a D-18 on your finger...

Many of our clients are gigging musicians and their gigs can be outside in the rain and other harsh environments and sticking on transducers makes me very nervous that they will come off. But I did it the Baggs way this time and we will see how it holds up.

The HiFi has a big brother that is around $450 making it one of the most expensive pick-ups targeted at the mainstream market. I have not installed and tried out one of these yet but look forward to it for a number of reasons.

1) No wire retainers on the top or top bracing.
2) No transducer wires in the pin paths or very close to same.
3) This replaces the Anthem as the flagship of the Baggs line and that will be NO easy task the Anthem is excellent. So for Baggs to let this one assume that position in the line it must be pretty dang good.

Can the HiFi transducers be also glued in? I'm sure they can but since this was our first time with one of these I did it their way in case it sucked and the customer wants it ripped out and returned.

Last comment is that K&K with three glued on transducers the wire from the output jack to the transducers can be looped into itself once as my friend Link Van Cleave a former OLFer taught me and that suspends the entire cable inside the box where it won't hit anything else for a very neat, minimalistic installation. The K&K is also passive, no battery to fail or need replacement during a gig and the entire system weighs the very least of all choices as a result.

So the K&K is going in my new Martin but I did and do like the tone of the Baggs Hifi.

Lastly the only thing preventing me from wholeheartedly recommending the Baggs HiFi, yet... is how the self stick adhesive will hold up going forward. Beyond that and especially in respect to tone it's a winner.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

One more pro tip for installation of any pup system:

See where Baggs and many others have the battery bag? Don't do this it's BS and will fall off beginning the cycle of loosening the velcro from the neck block too.

Instead what I do is for a right handed player I install the velcro butted against the side of the neck block on the left side of same for a right handed player or when facing the block as in the Baggs pic. When I install the battery bag I butt it against the side of the block and then press it home against the side and Velcro. When the guitar is in the playing position for a right handed player the bag is not on top of the block with it's weight sitting on the block.

This places the entire weight of the bag and battery sitting on the "shelf" of the neck block and held in this position only by the velcro. I've never had one come loose from this installation method and the velcro has never come loose either over time that I am aware of.

It takes the weight of the battery and bag off the velcro and only uses the velcro to keep it positioned sitting on the shelf of the neck block when the guitar is in the playing position.

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Ann Arbor Guitars