really depends on what you are looking for in a pickup. the fred has medium output, so it's not going to be as loud as a
tone zone or evo. the fred is renown for it's upper midrange boost that satch specifically requested when they were designing the pickup. it's basically a paf pro with a serious jolt of upper midrange. the result is a pickup that has a very singing tone for leads and harmonics that nearly jump out of the guitar. great balance and string clarity too. sounds great in basswood and mahogony bodies for sure, but i didn't like it too much in alder. i'd say the fred is best for classic rock to high gain rock, but there are pickups that are probably better suited for metal (depending on the type of metal you are playing).
mo joe is basically a higher output version of the fred (although dimarzio still classifies it as medium output). it seems about as loud as a
seymour duncan jb and shares some tonal characteristics of the jb too. although the mo joe is more of an 'open' sounding pickup while the jb seems more compressed.
