Well, a few years agi I had a good copy Jazz bass (bass type not actually important here) that had the passive EMG Hz pickups. I spent A LOT of money and bought a set of Joe Barden pups. These promised me to reproduce the "authentic, original sound of the early Jazz pickups". So I put them on and played.
Nobody noticed.
Nobody said "Gee, how wonderful your bass sounds now that you have spent large amounts of cash on your pickups!" I kidded myself for a while, imagining I could hear more top, deeper bass, more complex mids, but sooner or later I realised I was probably kidding myself.
I went back to looking at the EMG Hz pups and discovered the blurb which said the would give the "authentic, original sound of the early Jazz pickups". Yeah.
I re-installed the EMGs and - guess what - nobody noticed.
Draw your own conclusions.
G.