I possibly have an Epiphone Rivoli in my not-too-distant future. In the past I've owned an Epiphone EB-0, and it seems that the criticism for both basses centres on the pickup. The EB-0 pickup had a DC resistance of only 12k or so, and was weak and uneven. I've seen the same said about the Rivoli pickup.
I used to have a couple of Artec sidewinders, but they were both killed in action unfortunately. From memory both had the magnets incorrectly mounted and one, if not both, had the coils wired incorrectly.
I've seen a mod mentioned on here that spreads the magnetic field of the Epi pickup using Allen keys or ferrous wire. My thought would be, could you not just chip the stock magnets off the pickup and replace them with neodymium block? I've seen this stuff on Ebay, available in various lengths and widths. Could you get away with using a single row of these magnets along the base of the pole pieces?
My second thought is, which matters more; the width of the pickup coils or the width of the magnets? Does the weak E string phenomenon stem from the string's excursion extending beyond the range of the magnets or beyond the range of the coils? If it is the former could I get away with taking a cheap, hot guitar pickup, removing the coils and transplanting these onto the metalwork of the Epi sidewinder in bid to hike the DC resistance of the pickup?
Apologies if these are silly questions or if I am missing a fundamental point somewhere along the line.