Huh? I said the EB-
4(L) - the 70ies shortlived excursion of Gibson in single-coilish sounding territitory that had its coffin nailed shut by the soon advancing Grabber - sounded meek. I meant this here:
The newish EBs (current and of recent years) aren't meek at all, not as roaring as TB-Plus pups, but then which passive pup is? And the force of the TB-Plus comes at a price, it is not the most transparent sounding bass pup on earth though I like its characteristic. The Jim DeCola pups are much more refined and focused in comparison, but not sterile at all. I don't believe you could get them any louder without sacrifing the balance of the frequencies and the sonic "tidiness".
The one drawback of the Jim DeColas is that you cannot get them as close to the strings as TB-Plus pups without - audible (ghost notes and such) - interference to the string movement and that they have - an unfortunate parallel to the EB-4L pup of yore - a narrower magnetic field. if you pull strings a lot (and out of the magnetic field), you'll get fade-outs.