I Fucking love this pic <| sep |> Brighter pickups mean cheaper pickups . Wrap a pickup with less copper wire or lighter gauge copper wire , like say 43 awg instead of 42 awg , and they ' re brighter . Increase the impedance of the potentiometer and a pickup gets brighter . There ' s really no correlation between price and pickup sound . Ceramic magnets put out more signal than alnico , so again , cheaper pickups are ' hotter '. My point being , that paying more , doesn ' t really have much to do with tone . But paying more , can make you value a guitar more , and so it can sound better . If Squiers have greater production tolerances for their pickups , then it would make them cheaper to manufacture . But that would also mean that some are muddier than others , and some are louder , and some have more high end . The affinities almost certainly have ceramic pickups , which are not likely to sound muddy , they ' re more likely to sound hot andor clear . I don ' t think any two telecasters sound exactly the same . But I see no commonalities among Squier telecasters .