I needed an active sounding type pickup for my strat, because the stock humbucker was very hot but noisy, if it was plugged in a loud amp even with a small amount of gain it made a very annoying high pitch noise. Unfortunately, the strat doesn't have a place for battery, so when I saw this DiMarzio that gives you active sound without a battery I chose it. Long story short, it's a very good pickup, with a very clear yet heavy sound, very punchy, but I would reccomend to put it in a more warm type of guitar wood, as the strat alder is already very bright, and the pickup amplifies this quality, but it's very malleable with amp setting so no problem. In conclusion, I got what I wanted, a Noiseless powerful pickup that keeps the sound definition even at big distortion levels.