i was wondering if anybody knew of any besides Alembics as they're really expensive. I'm trying to get an almost acoustic sound, Emg's seem quite stale atleast in my experience with them. I figure with low impedance pickups, a bartolini adjustable dual gain buffer, and a stellartone tone pot i could achieve a pretty good phil tone
The impedance of the pickups is about the 20th item on the list of things that help your tone sound like Phil's IMHO.
That being said - EMG now has pickups with Alnico V magnets instead of ceramic, that should give a more vintage tone vs. the classic sterile tone that we're used to. That being said, I love the tight and focused tone of EMGs in big venues and hate the lack of warmth in a bedroom or practice setting. At home in my jam room I love a passive P-bass with flats, but find it really lacking in power on the bigger stages.
That tangent aside, I believe any "active" pickup that requires voltage to make sound would be a low impedance pickup. EMG is the classic example but Seymour-Duncan makes some, you can find MECs from Warwicks sometimes, and even Alembic pickups can be reasonable when you find them on Ebay, especially in Fender-replacement shapes.