Alnicos would be stronger but the main difference in sound characteristic is more the shape and subsequent coil engagement than the substance the magnet is made out of.
Strat mix ceramic bar alnico.
Alnico vs ceramic magnets.
The bar magnet on a humbucker or mini whether alnico or ceramic is tucked away inside.
4 personally i prefer the alnico single coils for the reasons i listed in 1.
Fwiw the barden tele neck pickup is my favorite tele neck position pickup and i ve tried a lot of different tele strat mini humbucker full size humbucker ceramic alnico pickups ymmv of course.
Bangdan alnico 2 bar magnet 2 5 x 5 x 125 for humbucker and p90 pickups 2 pcs magnetized.
Get it as soon as thu oct 8.
My opinion there would not be much difference if we could test ceramic poles versus alnico poles or ceramic bar versus same size ceramic bar generating the same field pattern.
With windings like for like the ceramic will usually have a thicker less stratty sound with a chunkier midrange and less definition.
The ceramic pickup non magnetic poles plus bar magnet has a different tone from the classic alnico.
The only exception to this is the vintage noiseless ceramic which was featured a few years back on higher end strats but they have seemed to fallen out of favor and have been replace by the scn different magnet than both ceramic and alnico pickups.
Thick or thin i have never ever seen any other color ceramic.
Strats are always alnico poles unless there is a mag attached to the bottom then the poles are generally 1018 or 1022 slugs.
Bar mags for ceramics are black.
The reason is ceramic mags are very brittle therefor difficult at best to make rod stock with.
Alnico seems to be the popular favorite but on the other hand there is no shortage of popular recordings that feature ceramic pickups.
To my ear much of the personality of the strat is lost with this type of pickup.
To crown a winner in our alnico vs ceramic magnets shootout we would need a way to accurately compare the two which is not an easy task.
Humbuckers come with alnico or ceramic magnets and people mix them all the time.
Single coils can use alnico poles but like the barden there is no room inside for a ceramic so it gets slung below and connects to paramagnetic poles i e.
