Guitar pickups can greatly affect the sound of a guitar. So, if you've tried a few different brands/models, what are your favorites, and what experiences have you had with other pickups?
My current electric guitar is a 2005 Fender Standard Fat Strat, with a Seymour Duncan humbucker in the bridge position and 2 Kinman AVn-56 single-coil pickups in the middle & neck positions. The guitar originally had Seymour Duncan single-coils in the middle & neck positions, and they put out quite a good sound, but I didn't like the noise they produced when used by themselves. Kinman makes great sounding noiseless pickups - The Kinmans have a nice, clear Strat sound but with no buzz. I really like them.
Besides the Kinman AVn-56, the Lace Sensor Gold is another one of my favorite pickups. My dad has a 1993 Stratocaster (plus?) that has 3 Lace Sensor Gold pickups, and I really like their sound. I've thought about buying a Strat Plus with those pickups myself. It looks like Fender stopped making that particular model around 1997-1998 though and all you can find are used ones. It seems that people want around $650-$1500 for a used one.
My first electric guitar was a Lotus Strat, like the white one in the photo on this page:
http://www.musicgoroundtroy.com/detail.aspx?id=1339814
It sounded alright for a budget guitar, but after I had it for about a year, I wanted to improve its sound. I replaced all 3 of its pickups with Lace Sensor Holy Grail HG-1000 pickups. They sounded great, and I was surprised at what a difference they made compared to the original pickups on that guitar. The Holy Grails sounded a lot deeper and clearer.
Nightfox