L.R. Baggs HiFi Duet

A newly designed internal microphone adds even more dimension and tonal versatility to the acclaimed HiFi pickups.

September 25, 2024

L.R. Baggs founder Lloyd Baggs has been dedicated to advancing acoustic amplification for almost 50 years. His curiosity and vision often leads him to take a look at an already successful product and figure out how to push its capabilities even further. L.R. Baggs introduced the bridge plate–mounted HiFi pickup to much acclaim last year (take a look at our demo of the system), and it wasn’t long before Lloyd and his company came out with a version with an internal microphone. Having refined and simplified the multiple-source system with the Anthem, Dual Source, iMix, Double Barrell, and others, L.R. Baggs has a vast amount of experience to draw from, so when the HiFi Duet was announced, I was eager to check it out. I recently had a chance to try the system both at home and in the Peghead Nation video studio.

L.R. Baggs sent us the HiFi Duet installed in a lovely mahogany-and-spruce Bourgeois Slope D (the same guitar and HiFi Duet setup used for a recent demo video the company produced with Trey Hensley). I played it through an AER Compact 60 amp, and also recorded it direct, using an L.R. Baggs Session DI to split the signal. The video includes examples with a combination of miked amp and DI signal, simulating a typical performance setup, as well as isolated examples of the DI by itself.

The HiFi portion of the HiFi Duet system consists of the same pair of bridge plate–mounted pickups used in the basic system. Encased in plastic, the lightweight sensors are attached to the bridge plate using double-sided 3M tape, and L.R. Baggs supplies a jig for ensuring placement directly opposite the saddle. The company might have simply used the Tru-Mic microphone used in its Anthem and Lyric systems as part of the HiFi Duet, but the width of the Tru-Mic doesn’t allow it to be positioned in the ideal location between the HiFi pickups, so Lloyd and his team went back to the drawing board. The result is the new Silo mic. Cylindrical in shape, the Silo has a new capsule that is suspended at a greater distance from the soundboard than the Tru-Mic. The HiFi pickups and Silo mic are blended with a new soundhole-mounted control unit that includes a sophisticated preamp with a finely tuned crossover circuit and small wheels for adjusting volume and mic/pickup blend. There is also a push button to check the system’s nine-volt battery and a control for setting the amount of mic to add to the overall sound (this feature is designed to be set during installation).

Plugged straight into my AER amp at home, I was immediately impressed with the HiFi Duet’s basic sound starting with a 50/50 mic-to-pickup ratio. The results from bridge plate–mounted pickups often vary depending on the instrument they’re installed in, but even with no mic in the mix, the combination of this Bourgeois and the HiFi was the best and fullest-sounding of the several I’ve heard. Adding the Silo mic to the blend immediately added dimension and realism. As I continued to play with the system, I was impressed by the amount of volume I was able to get before feedback or tubbiness became an issue. The sound was very close to what you would get with an external mic. This impression continued when I recorded the HiFi Duet in the Peghead Nation video studio. Most pickups benefit from some amount of processing in a pure DI context, but this is where the Silo mic is most impressive. Playing through my amp, I was quite happy with the sound of the HiFi alone, but with the straight DI sound, adding the mic made the difference between a somewhat sterile pickup tone and a sonic quality much more like that of an external microphone.

There are many factors that go into choosing a pickup system. As a fingerstyle player, I like the directness and sense of control that a good undersaddle pickup can bring to a system, but the HiFi Duet’s combination of bridge-plate pickups and internal microphone produces one of the most natural sounds I’ve ever heard; especially considering it came from a system that is blended onboard using a standard mono guitar cable and plugged into nothing but an acoustic amp. The case for the HiFi Duet was made especially clear when I played the guitar with a pick. As with the demo by Trey Hensley, the resulting tone is very true to the guitar’s acoustic tone, the response is more natural than what you often hear when pickups are tasked with amplifying a strong attack, and the tone coming out of the amp is very “alive”-sounding and fun to play with.

L.R. Baggs has put its extensive multi-source pickup know-how to great use, and the HiFi Duet is an impressive system that should be on the short list of amplification solutions for anyone looking for a natural-sounding option for their steel-string flattop.