Alpha Pots: theyre everywhere and in everything. They have a great dampened feel, are fairly well made and are cheap. But I have spent some time cleaning these things up and/or replacing them. The inexpensive Bournes seem to be no better in this area.

Are CTS pots better than Alpha pots?

Ive used Alpha pots and they didnt suck the tone out of my pickups. CTS may last longer or be more sturdy, but as far as I can tell they dont sound any better than Alphas.

What are Alpha pots?

Alpha potentiometers are among the worlds most widely used guitar tone and volume controls. Alpha pots are audio taper with standard ±20% resistance tolerance. Each pot includes a flat washer, lock washer, and two hex mounting nuts for custom height adjustment on a pickguard or control plate.

Are alpha pots metric?

Alpha Full Metric Size A500K Guitar Pots Audio Taper Split Shaft Potentiometers for Electric Guitar/Bass(Set of 4)

Where are CTS potentiometers made?

All CTS pots are made in Taiwan. American components, Russian components, all made in TAIWAN!

Are Bourns pots better than CTS?

CTS has a decrease from each level of around 5% and Bourns has a slower rate of around 2%. At this point, I am assuming I lost a lot of people by using percentages to talk about this Voltage Dividers taper, but in simplest terms the Bourns is louder.

Do guitar pots make a difference?

Guitar pots influence the level of how bright and dark your guitar sounds not affecting core sound. Low-value Pots (250K) sound warmer due to less resistance in the signal. In contrast, high-value pots (500K) sound brighter as they include stronger resistors that retain higher frequencies.

Are 500K pots louder than 250K?

When a control pot is added, part of that signal doesnt make it to the amp because some of the highs dont get past the pot. These highs go through the pot, and bleed off to ground. This is why 500K pots keep your sound brighter than 250K: their higher resistance wont allow as much of the signal to bleed off.

Do pots change tone?

A potentiometer or “pot”, is a variable resistor that changes your tone or volume by increasing or decreasing resistance. Adding a capacitor or “cap” to the pot turns it into a simple EQ. Turning the wiper adjusts the amount of resistance and, in turn, determines which frequencies are allowed to pass.

What pots do Epiphone use?

I found out: Epiphone uses metric pots which makes sense. But, I bought Gibson replacement tophats & found they dont fit on the Epi pot shafts. The tophats do fit the CTS pots.. so, I unscrewed one pot from the Epi to check if a CTS would drop in and it did not.

Do pots change guitar tone?

Guitar pots influence the level of how bright and dark your guitar sounds not affecting core sound. Low-value Pots (250K) sound warmer due to less resistance in the signal. In contrast, high-value pots (500K) sound brighter as they include stronger resistors that retain higher frequencies.

What do Orange Drop capacitors do?

The Orange Drop capacitor line introduced in the 60s heralded the capacitors of the modern era-with stability, resistance to temperature variation, low moisture absorption, excellent characteristics in AC circuits, no microphonics, and other desirable attributes.

Should I upgrade my guitar pots?

When should you consider upgrading? 1. If theres a problem — scratchy pots, loss of high frequencies when turning down, volume or tone taper that isnt smooth, and so on — then an upgrade may improve the instrument.

Are audio pots logarithmic?

Ours ears perceive sound in a logarithmic fashion. If you were to use a linear potentiometer for volume control, increasing and decreasing sound, the volume changes would not turn out right. Thus, audio tapers are potentiometers that are log tapers.

Should tone pots be linear or audio taper?

AFAIK tone pots should be linear taper. Audio taper is logarithmic with fast, coarse adjustment at one end and slow, very fine at the other. Linear taper pots should roll off the highs in an even, more controllable way.