I know the Epi TB's that came in my Les Paul Standard sucked bigtime: all nasal mids with little bottom and high end. They had six polepieces, but not the brass bottom plate. They also weren't overwound but they sounded that way. I've played enough new Gibson Thunderbirds side by side to know that the variation in their pickups is huge. Out of eight new ones I tried in Nashville awhile back, only one sounded decent at all.
OTOH, it's nice to see Gibson finally noticed the Thunderbird is somewhat marketable now that several other companies are making copies of it concurrently.
