A500K, B500K, which one for volume and tone?

[ashasha]

I was always under the impression that the A500K pots are logarithmic so they are supposed to be used for tone and that the B500K were linear and would work best for tone.

 

I'm just wondering what people here use as a rule.

 

The reason behind the wonderment is that the guitar I just bought has them reversed from what I thought was right and I'm not super stoked about the way that either the volume nor the tone respond when adjusted. The pots are fine (no noise, nice and smooth operation and they work), but the feel is off.

 

I'm not really interested in soldering tonight, but if it's bassackwards than it needs to be changed.

[BoneNut]

I just use A's (audio taper) for both volume and tone. I prefer the fine control.

[m90guy]

I personally like audios for both volume and tone, although my Edwards came with audio A500K for the volumes and linear B500k for the tones.

 

[Doctor49]

Tapered volume is supposed to be better bearing in mind the response curves of the ear.

 

YMMV

[Elias Graves]

I actually prefer linear.

But I'm weird.

 

EG

[Wyatt]

Generally every manufacturer uses log for Volume, it'll have the most even volume control from 0 to 10.

 

People are split on whether they like log or linear for Tone....but that's probably because some wiring setups controls are wired up with the sending the signal through the Tone pot in opposition to the way the Log taper is supposed to work, so you end up with a taper that is worse than a linear pot.

[IBDBB]

you should use A's for both.

B's are essentially on/off pots.

 

For some reason though, most imports use b's for volume and a's for tone.

[Jkater]

Suscribed. I'm interested as well.

[Armitage]

Human hearing isn't linear, it takes ten times the power to make something sound twice as loud. That's what audio (log) pots are designed to compensate for. They're usually best for volume control.

 

Different pots. The yellow is linear, and seems like the one you'd want... but the audio suits our hearing. Hense the name audio pot.

 

Of course things like compression and distortion change all that too.

 

While most manufacturers use audio pots for everything, some people prefer linear pots for tone controls, though most people don't use them often enough to care if they should be on 5... or 6... or 4... They just give'm a crank.

[m90guy]

Human hearing isn't linear, it takes ten times the power to make something sound twice as loud. That's what audio (log) pots are designed to compensate for. They're usually best for volume control. Different pots. The yellow is linear, and seems like the one you'd want... but the audio suits our hearing. Hense the name audio pot. Of course things like compression and distortion change all that too. While most manufacturers use audio pots for everything, some people prefer linear pots for tone controls, though most people don't use them often enough to care if they should be on 5... or 6... or 4... They just give'm a crank.

 

Which is the main reason I prefer Audio for everything. Its a little more forgiving and easier when you are dealing with On, A little on, off then rolling back to a specific point while playing, which for me is extremely hard to do. I dunno, its probably just becuase I suck.

[EADGBE]

Audio pots are best for passive volumes and tones.

[ashasha]

I think that I have a pretty good grasp on linear vs log and how the ear perceives differences in volume. It makes the A500K a lot better choice for what I want my volume pot to do.

 

But with tone control I am not so sure that I wouldn't want a nice linear sweep throughout the range. Of course "theoretically" and real world aren't always on the same page.

 

So I KNOW that for what I want I need to swap those volume pots out for A500K's. I'm just kind of on the fence about swapping out the tone pots for linear or leaving them. I swear that the sweep feels kind of wrong, but I'm not above admitting that there could be some bias in my analysis since the idea is stuck in my head.

[guitarcapo]

I usually leave them both maxed out usually it never matters.

 

Sometimes I might use one with a treble bleed cap...then I like audio taper better.

[PunkKitty]

For Alpha pots I usually use B pots for volume. However I have used A pots with a volume kit successfully. For CTS and Bourn pots I use A pots for everything. I almost always add a volume kit (resistor and cap) for the volume pots.