Welcome to Best Guitar Potentiometer
This article will give you the detailed information you need to make your buying decision easier.
I have been modifying and repairing guitars for more than seventeen years, and I would like to share my experiences on this subject.
Table of Contents
- What is a Guitar Potentiometer
- What is the Best Guitar Potentiometer
- Standard
- Push-pull Potentiometers
- Conclusion
What is a Guitar Potentiometer?
It is the part that you are controlling using your guitar volume and tone knobs. It gives variations to your tones, and it is also used to adjust your volume.
What is the Best Guitar Potentiometer?
There are three contenders here as the best guitar potentiometers. Bourns, Jim Dunlop, and CTS are the top contenders.
We will rate them on their standard models and the push-pull model.
Standard
Seymour Duncan is using Bourns as their high-level smooth turning potentiometer.
There is also a potentiometer by Bourns which is featured by Seymour Duncan as a fast potentiometer, and a signature of Yngvie Malmsteen.
The regular Bourns Potentiometer is cheaper than the two.
CTS makes potentiometers for the DiMarzio brand. CTS is also the standard for Fender Guitars, especially the high-end ones. The CTS is very well made, and it is the industry standard for a very long time.
The Jim Dunlop is new in the market and comes sealed, meaning dust and moisture will not get into the potentiometer, thereby reducing the chance of rust inside.
The smooth turning potentiometer by Bourns used to be my favorite, but the Jim Dunlop is more bang for the money even though it is a little expensive.
Verdict
I consider Jim Dunlop Super Pot as the best standard potentiometer available in the market. If you find it a little too expensive, bear in mind that both the CTS and Bourns are also of top-notch quality.
Push-Pull Potentiometers
It is a potentiometer with an added push-pull switch. This type of potentiometer will give a guitar player another wiring configuration to his pickups, thereby creating more tone variation.
It is a brilliant way of adding a switch to the system while preserving the look of a guitar. You do not need to use a separate switch which requires drilling an extra hole.
Two potentiometer brands are vying for the top spot for this type of potentiometer. Jim Dunlop does not have a push-pull model as of this update.
Bourns is the more old school type, and it actually uses a smaller potentiometer diameter for their push-pull type potentiometer.
The CTS push-pull potentiometer is more of a modern design than the Bourns, which is very traditional. The CTS uses a full-sized potentiometer.
I have used a lot of Bourns Push-Pull Potentiometers before, but I switched to the CTS which I consider now as the best push-pull potentiometer in the market as of this update.
Conclusion
There you go, I picked Jim Dunlop for the as the best standard potentiometer and CTS as the best Push-Pull Potentiometer.
Feel free to write comments and ask questions.
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