I'm using Jackson proprietary noise cancelling single coils in one guitar and sounds totally noiseless to me. I believe they are knock-offs of Fender noiseless series. In that same guitar, I use a SD Duncan Custom that splits. The tone from HB to split is pretty much the same. I find you can play it split and go back to full HB for a boost.
I have another guitar with SD Hot Rails which is just a HB in single coil format. I find those not as flexible on tonality but still like the sound.
Then I have MiM fender singles that are, yes, noisy.
I do believe that ceramic magnets are less noisy than alnico, although I never looked this up to see if true.
I had a guitar from 1990-1993 made from Chandler parts, ash body and Jackson style neck with an ebony fret board, great playing guitar. The neck was real similar to an Ibanez Prestige model I have now, but not quite as wide. The only thing I saw as a drawback were the pickups, a pair of EMG Selects, so in my infinite wisdom (mid 20's) I bought a SD Custom Custom for the bridge and another SD (unknown) for the neck. They are great pickups, but for some reason they didn't sound nearly as good as the Selects, so after a few months I swapped them back and sold the SD's. Now I've heard the SD's in other guitars and played a couple and they were awesome, so it may have been the combination of the rest of my gear at the time, and the Selects just played better with the other items. Once I sold that set up the guitar didn't sound all that great with the new gear I bought. The Selects were a much cheaper pickup but had their place in at least one scenario.
That's the aggravating part of chasing the tone in your head , I have a preconceived notion of what I believe will take me to that point of tone nirvana but in reality it's to cluttered with YouTube gear demonstrations that may or may not translate well to my particular combination of equipment, environment or the sound my fingers produce when playing, just way to many variables. But receiving others opinions of their experiences are still very helpful and I value them. For example, my guitar I played for 26 years before getting the Cutlass sounded really good, I made the comment earlier in a post above that the EMG SA pickups were a little sterile. What I had not thought about until later was it did sound much better for the first 16 years I played it until I took it to have a fret job done, I had the guy change out the pick guard at the time and told him "just leave the tone pot out, I only need a volume knob", it never sounded quite the same and that could very well be the cause of it sounding a little sterile. I think suggesting to others that removing the tone pot from the circuit might not be the best option could be good information to share that may help them make a more informed choice.
I'll add this for free, I don't regret the purchases I've made over the past six years that have brought me to the point I am at now, a very nice guitar that suits me well at this point in my life. The Kemper, it gives me unlimited choices in amps and more effects than I'll ever use, I still haven't tried them all as of yet. I added the Kemper remote last August (demo unit, looked brand new but I saved some scratch), I use it like a pedal board in browser mode, still haven't tried performance mode but I'm sure that will only enhance its use. SD Powerstage 700, improvement over my last power amp plus stereo, just for my own enjoyment, though I'm still struggling some with settling on a speaker. It sounds pretty good as is but I still feel like I haven't hit that sweet spot that would allow me to use the Kemper at it's full potential, but the investment has grown to a tidy sum.
Just for comparisons sake and a little perspective, or maybe better called it a reality check for myself. I ran sound last summer at a smaller venue for a band that played a variety of genres, country, older rock, soft rock and a little 70s pop. They sounded good overall and played well but the guitarist/singer stood out. He had a really good sound, he didn't lack in tone nor talent, his gear was a squire strat, peavey bandit, compressor and delay stomp, and he utilized the bandits two channels and reverb. When I got home I was a little disappointed and begin to wonder if less could be more? Maybe I've spent way to much time and money on this venture when I should be in the woodshed practicing until my fingers are worn to the bone? So on this I pondered for several days...............................................
Then I saw the demo remote unit pop up online and grabbed it as quickly as possible, completely delighted with myself in the money I had saved and how proud my wife would be because of this extraordinary purchase, and this made the world make sense once again and brought balance back into my life