The HFN is designed to give you a full, rich sound and will reproduce exactly what your guitar sounds like. The HFN series of pickups utilizes an elegant combination of materials: rosewood for its main structure and arching with a light weight brass shell for its noise shielded piezo unit. Total weight of the pickup is a very light 0.2 ounces (7 grams). It will not affect the acoustic sound of the instrument when not in use. The HFN will fit virtually any X braced steel string acoustic guitar whether it has a pin bridge or not. The only hole that you need to drill is for the endpin jack or endpin jack preamp. The HFN's have been tested on and installed in 7 and 8 string guitars and also work very well in those instruments. The HFN Active comes with our single channel Player endpin jack preamp. The HFN Active VT comes with the same Player endpin jack preamp and adds a set of volume and tone thumbwheel controls. HFN Artist models feature our two channel Artist II endpin jack preamp which can be run from an onboard 9 volt battery or from phantom power. The HFN Artists are available with either one or two thumbwheel volume controls. These thumbwheel controls simply stick to the underside of the lip of the sound hole. A single thumbwheel control would be used to control the volume of our HFN pickup. The second thumbwheel control would be used if you wish to add a secondary pickup (like a magnetic sound hole pickup). Having two thumbwheel volume controls allows you to mix and blend both pickups as you like. Installation is quick and simple and takes about 15 minutes. All HFN's come fully wired, complete and ready to install. The Active and Artist models also include a self adhesive velcro mount cordura nylon battery bag. Neat and tidy.