250K pot or 500K pot?

[bonehead189]

What is the difference between a 250K pot and a 500K pot for pick ups? I need to know if I need to get a new one for my RG350DX. Any info would be appreciated! Is there one recomended over another? Thanks

[elcid]

250k for single coil
500k for humbucker
I think that's just for volume and usually 250k for tone on either.

[screamndemon69]

correct me if i'm wrong -
you get a smooth taper in volume for swells with a 250k while the 500k "jumps" levels.
i just put a 500k in my S520 and i'm not pleased - i lost my ability for smooth volume swells. i now need to replace with a 250k pot to rectify.

[ryanb]

No, that's because you have a bad pot, not because it is 500K. It's just maximum resistance (higher output humbuckers work with the larger resistor), and has nothing to do with how smooth and linear it works. That's simply a quality issue.

Of course there are also linear taper and audio taper versions of each of those. Guitars usually use the audio (logarithmic) taper, but that is also a matter of preference.

[glockhead]

I have 500K pots in my les paul. Volume and tone. I used cts pots and checked them with my meter. They were all very close to 500K. Some of the cheaper pots advertise 500K and are not even close.

The pots did help the tone alot. I was surprised.

[bonehead189]

Thanks for the info guys! Still don't know which one I'll choose. Probably the 250K pot. Seems like it has better sound quality for playing lows, mids, and highs. I want to use it on an H-S-H setup though. Would it still work?

[j.arledge]

250K vs. 500K
Generally, 500K-ohm pots are used with humbuckers and 250Ks are used with single-coil pickups. 25K pots are used for active systems.

You can use any value you like, but a 250K will give a slightly warmer tone than a 500K pot. The 250K pot bleeds off (attenuates) some of the high frequencies to ground. A 1Meg-ohm pot will attenuate even less than a 500K pot, so if you want to hear your guitar "wide open" you may want to try one.

We also have push-pull control pots, blend-pots, and dual concentric pots for special wiring applications. Refer to Understanding Guitar Wiring for more information on these electrical components and how they work.

All of our pots include two mounting nuts, two flat washers, and a lock washer for proper installation. Extra Mounting Nuts and Lock Washers are also available.

from www.stew-mac.com


all pots bleed a certain amount of signal to the ground on your guitar, generally 250 k bleed a little more than 500k . 1 meg pots bleed almost nothing and have the wide range of the humbucker, usually the bleeding happens with the treble . Basically 250 k aren't very good except for single coils and even then in some instances aren't great.

[bonehead189]

I'm going to get the 500K pot, but I'll still experiment with different value pots to see which ones work best for me. Thanks for all the great replys!