EMG JH "HET" Set BC

I bought this set as a replacement for my current 60N/85B setup. Overall I prefer passive pickups to EMGs, so I was interested to see if this set could give me the perfect middle ground between the two technologies. On the bridge pickup I think this set totally delivers. Heavy rhythm playing has more bite to it, the sound is more open compared to the compressed tones of a 81 or 85. Just what I was looking for. The neck pickup sounds great as well, especially for overdriven leads... but I think it has too much output and too much bass for my tastes when it comes to clean tones. Even when lowering the pickup as far down as it goes there is always a bit of drive to the tone with the volume on full. The good thing about the solderless system that newer EMG pickups comes with is that it's trivial to swap pickups. In that sense, building a collection of EMG pickups is similar to building a collection of pedals. So I will for sure keep my 60 around and perhaps install and use that one for clean tones as neede...