Quick question about ES130 pots

[Donkey Oaty]

I invested in a beautiful ES130 last year ( only just come out of its case ). I have now decided to part with my LS150 and spend more time with the ES.

But going from the sublime smooth CTS pots on the LS150 to the really cheapo pots on the ES130 is doing my head in.

Why did Tokai put such cheap pots in the ES130 and has anyone upgraded them to CTS and orange drops ?

 

[Donkey Oaty]

A quick nudge.

 

[mrsuspend]

I think those-in-the-know recommend Alpha pots since CTS aren't metric.
Maybe that's just for the 70's and 80's models?
There's a huge thread about pots and caps here: http://www.tokaiforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9184

/Magnus

 

[JohnA]

Apart from the fit issue CTS pots take about 10 years before the stiffness reduces to a useable level! A 500K pot is a 500K pot, CTS, Alpha or whatever, none of it will make ANY difference to the tone.

 

[Donkey Oaty]

Apart from the fit issue CTS pots take about 10 years before the stiffness reduces to a useable level! A 500K pot is a 500K pot, CTS, Alpha or whatever, none of it will make ANY difference to the tone.

Its the stiffness I want ! ( the ones fitted to the ES130 move when you blow on them )

Plus if I am going to spend the time replacing the pots in a semi, then I want decent ones. The cheapo ones fitted to the ES130 will be scratchy as hell within 5 months of gigging.

I'm looking for decent quality uniform track ( constant Log or Lin resistance ). I favour CTS pots over the others due to there stiffness. But Gibson's 300K pots are also a good choice. ( nice tonal position within 250k and 500k )


It would save me time and money if anyone else had upgraded to CTS and Orange drops on the ES130 and found them to be good.

Metric or Imperial is irrelevant in my case.

 

[JohnA]

Well if it's stiffness you want then CTS should be OK.

I put CTS pots & Orannge-drops in my LS80, before I knew about metric pots They work well, and have been in there a couple of years now.

I did change the OD's for some paper in Oil Caps, I don't know if it's all in my mind, but i'm sure the PIO's sound better than the OD's

 

[Paladin2019]

I use a mix of CTS and metric pots. I planned to upgrade all my pots to CTS but couldn't because of my switching arrangement - CTS don't make DPDT push pull pots, so I ended up using them on my volume controls only. It actually worked out really well; I find the stiffness great on the volumes as I use them as gain controls and the stability is very useful for that, especially on cantankerous 60's style fuzzes. Meanwhile I like being able to zip all around the less stiff tone controls at the flick of a finger.

I think good quality pots definately make a difference. They are made to superior tolerances - a cheap 500k pot probably isn't 500k or anywhere close - and their signal to noise ratio is much better. That's before you even look at issues like long term reliability.