I have a Les Paul Classic also with the 496R/500T Ceramic pickups. Very high output without any of the muddiness you can get with AlNiCo high output pickups. Leads have a nice trebly bite to them. I have an ES-335 with 57 Classics in it, very classic sounding indeed, Moderate output but in the 335 they scream with lots of sustain. I have the new SG-12 string with the 490R/498T pickups, they have high output and I imagine Gibson put these in the SG-12 because I think they tend to have less treble. The SG-12 has a nice string to string balance unlike the RIC 360/12 I sold to buy this, the RIC was way too bright. I am going to put some 490R/498T's in my Les Paul Standard soon, I had replaced the stock Burstbuckers with the 496R/500T's but realized I had 2 LP's that sounded identical. I didnt like the Burstbuckers at all, low output and noisy because of the unbalanced coils.
VP