Difference between 250k and 1 meg pots?

[hyperedge]

I just bought a set of Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups for my strat, they
came with 1 meg pots but I have 250k's installed in the guitar. What
difference will the tone make with the 1 meg pots? If I keep the 250k's am I
going to be missing out on something (better high's or deeper lows)? I 've
never wired pots before so I'd rather just solder the pickups to the current
setup...Thanks in advance,

hyperedge

[Andy van Tol]

250K is generaly OK with single-coils.

If you like experimenting, you could change to 500K or 1 meg, you'll
probably discover not too much difference, *very slightly* more highs, if
anything. Lows aren't affected by the normal range of pot values.

Usually the mfr. will say what the "design value" is for the pot for a
specific pickup, go with that. What does Fender suggest fo VNs?

--
Andy
---
"A/B switch" boxes at http://ab_box.tripod.com
"True bypass" boxes at http://true_bypass.tripod.com
Basic, cheap, effective.

hyperedge wrote in message ...

[hyperedge]

Andy,, thanks for the info. Fender sends the VN pickup set with 1 meg pots.
I just don't want to hassle with them if it's not going to make an
appreciable difference. I don't need more pronounced high's in this guitar,
more bass would be cool though...

hyperedge

"Andy van Tol" <no...@nospam.org> wrote in message
news:9t4jv1$mgh$1...@suaar1ab.prod.compuserve.com...

[Scott Harrison]

Generally single coils use 250k pots and humbuckers use 500k pots. This is
because humbuckers have a darker tone than single coils and therefore need a
higher value pot to allow more treble to pass through. On the other hand single
coils generally being a brighter sounding pickup only need 250k pots. It gets
interesting when companies like Dimarzio and Fender bring out so called vintage
single coil pickups that have reduced hum or are noiseless. The deal here is
that in order to kill the hum, they have also killed the true single coil
treble response. Therefore they try to compensate by using very high value pots
like 1meg in order to bring back the single coil brightness to an otherwise
'dark' sounding pickup. Personally I can hear quite a difference in the pot
value. I put together a strat with noiseless Kinman pickups and used 500k pots,
even though the instructions recommended 250k. With 500k pots the strat sounded
more like a bright tele so eventually i replaced them all with 250k pots. This
tamed the brightness and gave the pickups a much smoother treble response. Some
might disagree with me and say there is little difference, but to my ears the
difference is obvious. I hope this has helped.

[Rev. J. Thaddius Toad]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2001 02:12:51 GMT, "hyperedge" <hype...@hom.com>
wrote:

I just put a set of VNs in my strat as well. I used the 1megs it came
with - no particular reason, I just decided to go with the basic setup
as they shipped it, and modify from there.

I'm told, however, that the first mod people usually do to these VNs
is changing to 250k pots, cause apparently it sounds better with them.
So if "they" are right, you're doing the right thing.

-------------------------------------------------
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance,
it is the illusion of knowledge.
-Stephen Hawking
-------------------------------------------------

[hyperedge]

As a follow up; I installed the VN's last night with my current 250k pots
and they sound great, plenty of treble, I wouldn't want any more. This
particular Strat is very lite and already has a midrangy tone, the Bill
Lawrence 280's I'm replacing were a tad too bright for my ears. The BL 280's
were slightly clearer sounding while the VNs are a little more bell-like,
rounder. I also have a Strat with Dimarzio VVs, I've tried Rio Grande, and
Fender Fat 50's as well. I admit I have a problem with tone (g). My wife
said if I spent half as much time practicing instead of swapping pickups I'd
be a really good player...

hyperedge

"Rev. J. Thaddius Toad" <jpask...@Mhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3bf724da.875474575@news...

[Bob]

If you will be selling the 280's, I'd be interested in buying them.

Thanks

Bob
===

"hyperedge" <hype...@hom.com> wrote in message
news:tctJ7.41022$Y6.42...@news1.rdc1.ct.home.com...

[Chip L]

I just did a lot of research on tone/volume pots as I was doing some repairs
on my Tele. The pot was bad and when I opened it up, both the vol and tone
had 500k pots. Come to find out that Tele's have had 250, 500, AND 1 meg
pots installed standard over the years. The high the ohm reading, the more
highs allowed through the circuit. I believe 500kis standard these days on
Fender teles

If you find that you always have the tone on 10, try going up a step in the
ohm reading. If its too bright, at least you can actually use the tone adj
for something.

There is also a lot of tweaking you can do with the bypass capicators on the
tone and volume pot. One will go between the tone and volume pot. The other
is between lugs of the volume pot. The latter allows highs to pass as you
lower the volume. If your guitar gets muddy as you lower the volume,
increase the volume capicator. Radio shack sells a variety pack for around
$3 so you can try different sizes.

Chip

hyperedge wrote in message ...