DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Another thread that no one will comment on, most likely, but what the hell.
This one is interesting, because both pickups theoretically should sound quite similar. The Texas Special is of course Fender's take on a bright, slightly overwound singlecoil as popularized by Stevie Ray Vaughan, while the Dimarzio Area '61 is their Virtual Vintage noiseless take on the same thing.
What surprised me the most here was that tonally, these pickups actually weren't that different. The clean sounds are noticeably more chimey and a little brighter with the Texas Specials, but the more balanced sound of the Area '61 wasn't exactly unappealing either. Distorted, they were awfully hard to tell apart (jump back and forth between that first couple notes using the time markers in the comments of the video) - the Texas Specials might have a slightly smoother high end, but they're quite close.
The biggest two differences I found were 1.) the Area '61 is either a little hotter or, due to its lower magnetic pull and modern stagger, can be set closer to the strings, and 2.) the vintage stagger on the Texas Special made the b string especially seem a little weaker than its neighbors.
I'm going to keep playing, but my first impression is that while hands down the Texas Specials would be the better choice for a dedicated clean/blues guitar, for the proggier, shreddier sort of blues rock I play (especially in that I do a ton of legato) maybe the Area pickups would be a better match, especially with a bridge humbcker.
That said, not shown in this video - the in-between neck/middle sound is to DIE for on these Texas Specials.